Robert Tear, British opera singer, died from cancer he was , 72.

Robert Tear, CBE  was a Welsh tenor and conductor, died from cancer he was , 72.
(8 March 1939 – 29 March 2011)

Tear was born in Barry, Glamorgan, Wales, UK, the son of Thomas and Edith Tear. He attended Barry Boys' Grammar School and was a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied under Kimbell. He was later elected an Honorary Fellow of the College.^[3] In 1961 he was appointed a Vicar Choral at St Paul's Cathedral. ^[4] His operatic début was in 1966 as Peter Quint in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw on the English Opera Group's tour of England and Russia. In 1970, he made his début at Covent Garden as Lensky in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. He made his début as a conductor in 1985 in Minneapolis. Appointed CBE 1984.
Tear was closely associated with the music of British composers Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett. He created the role of Dov in Tippett's opera The Knot Garden. During the 1989-90 season, he made a highly successful debut with the Glyndebourne Touring Company as the tormented Aschenbach in Britten's Death in Venice. He was well-known for his duets with Benjamin Luxon, reviving many Victorian parlour songs.
Tear was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (Coleg Brenhinol Cerdd a Drama Cymru). In 1984, he was awarded the CBE. He was married with two daughters and lived in West London.
He gave his farewell performance at Covent Garden in 2009, taking the rôle of Emperor Altoum in Puccini's Turandot. Shortly afterwards, he commented "the voice is still there, but the body is no longer able to follow". ^[5]
Robert Tear's London death was announced on 29 March 2011.^[6]

Recordings

Tear made over 250 records for many major recording companies. Roles he sang on disc range in diversity from Uriel in Haydn's "Creation" to the painter in Alban Berg's Lulu, and from Pitichinaccio in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann to Sir Harvey in Donizetti's Anna Bolena. His many classical recordings include performances of Bach, Handel, Monteverdi, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Bruckner, Stravinsky, Janáček and Messiaen. In the English canon, he also recorded songs by Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Arthur Butterworth.

 

To see more of who died in 2010 click here