Judith Pierce

Judith Pierce, soprano

Born: 21 November, 1930, in Lancashire

Died: 9 October, 2003, in Canterbury, aged 72.

IN the early years of Scottish Opera, Alexander Gibson and Peter Hemmings created a company that had excellent musicians in the pit and singers of much style and finesse on stage.

Both Gibson and Hemmings were to remain loyal to those singers (often young Scots) for many years and they, in turn, provided a superb backbone for SO in those pioneering productions.

One such singer was the soprano Judith Pierce, who from 1966 was to have a distinguished career with the company, singing many exacting roles - and bringing to each an individuality and zest.

Her singing was always accurate and stylish: it had a dramatic conviction in its delivery which added much to the company’s burgeoning reputation.

Pierce trained with the Royal Manchester College of Music and obtained a scholarship to further her studies in Munich. She appeared in the 1958/59 season with the Royal Opera in secondary roles and returned to Covent Garden for the next five years, singing under conductors such as Rudolf Kempe and Otto Klemperer.

Pierce also became a regular visitor to the Aldeburgh Festival and was often cast by Benjamin Britten in his operas there. She was a wonderfully sympathetic Mrs Grosse in Turn of the Screw, a role she was to sing with much distinction with SO ten years later.

It was in 1966 that Gibson asked her to join SO to sing the exacting role of Lady Billows in Albert Herring. Pierce wisely never made the character a stereotype and brought an air of dignity and charm to the larger-than-life lady.

Conrad Wilson in The Scotsman said Pierce "looked and sounded formidable".

It was a part she sang with SO on a prestigious 1968 European tour and ended with an exceptionally well-received performance at the Maggio Musicale in Florence.

Of the many other roles she sang with SO over the following decade particularly memorable were Mrs Grosse (which Wilson labelled "plump and doddery") under the conductor Roderick Brydon, and Berta in Barber of Seville.

Then in 1971 Gibson cast her in one of SO’s most challenging (and magnificent) productions. He conducted Richard Strauss’s Der Rosencavalier in Anthony Besch’s thrilling production which had a superb cast led by Helga Dernesch, Janet Baker and Elizabeth Harwood.

Pierce sang the lesser - but vital - role of Marianne and was singled out for praise in many of the reviews ("seldom have I heard so many of the voluble duenna’s words" in the Financial Times).

Pierce also had a good career in the concert hall. She sang often with the Scottish National Orchestra (a 1971 series of Britten concert arias is fondly remembered) and in that year she also sang the taxing role of Queen Elizabeth in Britten’s Gloriana at Haddo House. She returned there the following year to sing the Female Chorus in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.

To many of her colleagues in the theatre, Pierce was always known as "Joy". It was a wonderfully appropriate nickname. She married Theo Barker in 1955. He predeceased her.

ALASDAIR STEVEN