John Kentish was a versatile lyric tenor with a fine voice and an attractive stage presence.
Born in Blackheath, London, he was educated at Rugby School and Oriel College, Oxford, where he joined the opera club and in 1928 scored a success in Weber’s Der Freischütz, conducted by Reginald Jacques. The following year he took the role of Vašek in Smetana’s The Bartered Bride conducted by Sir Hugh Allen. He got rave reviews and, as a result, went down before taking his finals. He studied seriously — in Vienna and elsewhere — and had begun to make a career in opera and as a recitalist when the Second World War intervened.
A junior officer in the Royal Navy throughout the war, he saw action in the Mediterranean and on convoys to North Russia. Soon after the war ended Kentish joined Sadler’s Wells Opera.
His lyric roles included Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Alfredo in La traviata and Almaviva in The Barber of Seville. He repeated Vašek and sang Tichon in Katya Kabanova for Raphael Kubelik in the legendary first British performance in 1954.
By that time he had begun to appear at Glyndebourne where his roles included Malcolm in Macbeth (1952), Sellem in The Rake’s Progress, Scaramuccio in Ariadne auf Naxos, Valzacchi in Der Rosenkavalier and Mauer in Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers (1961). Meanwhile he appeared in two Handel Opera Society productions: as Ulisse in Deidemia (1955) and as Oronte to Joan Sutherland’s Alcina (1957).
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His versatility and courage were self-evident when, in 1950, he returned to Oxford to sing Aeneas in Berlioz’s The Trojans on three consecutive nights in the first English performances, under Jack Westrup. As the years passed he moved from lyric to character roles. Harold Rosenthal, in Opera magazine, thought his Basilio (in Figaro) “the best I can remember”.
During the 1960s Kentish taught privately and at the Guildhall School, and in the late 1970s became director of studies at the London Opera Centre. He was then director of opera at the Royal College.
In 1983 he retired from professional activity and moved to Wells in Somerset where he continued to teach privately.
Properly, but never aggressively, ambitious, John Kentish made the very most of a beautiful voice of medium size, which he enhanced with exceptional musicality, intelligence and charm. He was also a good colleague: a friend described him as a “gentle, handsome, romantic man”.
He is survived by his wife, Leigh, and three of his four children.
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John Kentish, tenor, was born on January 21, 1910. He died on October 26, 2006, aged 96