Helen Roberts

Helen Florence Roberts (15 July 1912 – 12 December 2010), later known as Betty Roberts and by her married name, Betty Walker, was an English singer and actress, best known for her performances in soprano roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

After beginning her career touring in Italy and then England in grand opera, Roberts joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as a principal soprano in 1938. She remained with that company for ten years, marrying another company member, the baritone Richard Walker, in 1944.

After four more years of theatre in Britain, the couple moved to the US, where they presented Gilbert and Sullivan in two-person entertainments throughout North America. They then moved to Australia, where they joined the J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company. They toured with Williamson in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They also appeared in musicals, including a four-year engagement in the original Australian production of My Fair Lady. After her husband's death in 1989, she returned to England.

Roberts was born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. Her father was a surveyor for Lloyd's of London. She was educated at the Bruton School for Girls, before her father moved Helen, her two sisters, Joan and Sheila, and brother Denis, to Naples Italy for five years immediately after World War I. Helen returned to England, to finish her schooling, and then studied music at the Royal Academy of Music, privately and later in Italy. She toured in Italy with the Milan Opera Company, singing the role of Norina in Don Pasquale by Donizetti. After returning to England, she toured in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffman as the Doll and Antonia and also sang briefly in the chorus of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

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