Darrell Fancourt

Darrell Louis Fancourt Leverson OBE (8 March 1886 – 29 August 1953), known as Darrell Fancourt, was an English bass-baritone and actor, known for his performances and recordings of the Savoy operas.

After a brief concert career, Fancourt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, where he starred in more than 10,000 performances over a 33-year period until his death. He regularly played about ten different roles for the company over these years, including the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore, and the title character in The Mikado, which he played more than 3,000 times. Fancourt was famous for his melodramatic style, creating the controversial Mikado laugh that was later adopted by some of his successors. His performances are preserved in nineteen of the company's recordings made between 1923 and 1950.

Fancourt was born Darrell Louis Fancourt Leverson, the younger son of three children of a Jewish family in Kensington, London. His father, Louis George Leverson (1860–1909), was a diamond merchant who had made a fortune in South Africa. His mother, Amelia (Amy) de Symons, née Lewis-Barned (1865–1931), was "a clever vivacious young artist of the musical comedy type". Both were staunch friends of the arts. His father's sister married Brandon Thomas. Fancourt was baptised into the Church of England when he was fourteen years old.

Fancourt was educated at Bedford School and with a private tutor in Germany. He continued his vocal studies in Germany with Lilli Lehmann. Upon his return to England, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. At the Royal Academy, he studied singing with his mother's former teacher, Sir Henry Wood, and Alberto Randegger, and drama with Richard Temple, creator of many of the Savoy roles in which Fancourt was later famous. While a student, Fancourt performed in opera productions at the Academy, creating the role of Tackleton, the toy merchant, in Alexander Mackenzie's opera The Cricket on the Hearth, and playing Colas in Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne, and Benoit in La bohème. The Times thought him "amusing but not noticeably musical" in the last.

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