A comprimario tenor is one who specialises in secondary roles, fulfilling a vital function while others take the glory. John Dobson, who has died aged 92, clocked up more than 2,000 performances in around 90 roles at Covent Garden alone by the time he retired in 1995.
A dependable, stalwart member of the company at the Royal Opera, he sang the treacherous courtier Shuisky to Boris Christoff’s Tsar in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, and the police agent Spoletta to eight different Scarpias including Tito Gobbi, Peter Glossop and Geraint Evans in Puccini’s Tosca. With his mercurial facility for inhabiting the multiple roles he undertook, he also fitted the definition of a character tenor: a singer whose clear enunciation and acting skills enables him to bring subsidiary characters vividly to life.
