Norman Allin

Norman Allin (19 November 1884 – 27 October 1973) was a British bass singer of the early and mid twentieth century, and later a teacher of voice.

Allin was born in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1884. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music under John Acton (singing) and Walter Carroll (theory). He married the teacher Edith Clegg in 1912 and went to London, where the conductor Sir Henry Wood heard him and planned to involve him in the 1914 Norwich Festival. The festival was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. However, Allin did sing the Handel aria "O ruddier than the cherry", from Acis and Galatea, at a Promenade Concert for Wood during the war.

Sir Thomas Beecham auditioned him and at once offered him the title role in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, but Allin felt a less challenging debut was needed. So, his first appearance for Beecham was as the Old Hebrew in Samson et Dalila on 15 October 1916. With the Beecham Opera Company he appeared, too, in Verdi's Aida. He first sang at a Royal Philharmonic concert, again under Beecham's baton, in 1918. He later appeared as Boris, as Gurnemanz in Wagner's Parsifal, Hagen in Wagner's Götterdämmerung and Baron Ochs in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In 1921, he became a founder-member of the British National Opera Company.

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