Gwynn Parry Jones

Parry Jones (14 February 1891 – 26 December 1963), known early in his career as Gwynn Jones, was a Welsh tenor of the mid-twentieth century.

Gwynn Parry Jones was born in Blaina, Monmouthshire. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, and in Weimar and Milan. Among his teachers were John Coates and Albert Visetti. Jones made his debut in 1914 and shortly thereafter went on an opera and concert tour to the United States. He was returning to England aboard the RMS Lusitania in May 1915 when it was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat. Over 1000 passengers and crew died, but Jones was one of 761 survivors.

He joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in July 1917 playing principal tenor roles in Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore, Iolanthe, Princess Ida, and The Yeomen of the Guard. He then joined the Beecham Opera Company and later was a founder member of the British National Opera Company. At this time he changed his professional name from Gwynn Jones to Parry Jones.

In the concert hall, his repertoire included the tenor parts in Handel's Judas Maccabaeus and Messiah and Haydn's The Creation. He sang with Toscanini in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

In the opera house, his roles included such different tenor roles as Tannhäuser and the Duke in Rigoletto. In the post-war Covent Garden company he appeared in Peter Brook's production of Boris Godunov; the staging of The Magic Flute designed by Oliver Messel; the première of Arthur Bliss and J. B. Priestley's The Olympians; and Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by Erich Kleiber.

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