Margaret Curphey obituary

Soprano at the heart of productions of the Ring cycle and other Wagner operas conducted by Reginald Goodall

Margaret Curphey, who has died aged 86, was a member of the company of singers that under the inspirational direction of Reginald Goodall gave the world a series of Wagner performances acclaimed as a landmark in British operatic history. The English-language recordings of her as Sieglinde and Gutrune in the Ring, and as an exquisite Eva in The Mastersingers – demonstrating a peerless understanding of the fusion of text and music at the heart of Wagner’s art – are sufficient to guarantee her place alongside Rita Hunter, Alberto Remedios and Norman Bailey in that project. However, she never made the big breakthrough in career terms that her vocal talents deserved.

The authority of her singing throughout the range, but with a specially radiant top, together with the nuanced deployment of tonal colouring, were indispensable assets in these roles, cultivated over an extended period of time in Valhalla, as Goodall’s rehearsal eyrie under the roof of Covent Garden was known. She also sang Elsa in Lohengrin – the sheer beauty of sound in the Act III love duet with Remedios has arguably never been surpassed – but her vocal amplitude and ability to project enabled her to add the heavier part of Brünnhilde to her other Ring roles, at Goodall’s instigation, singing it in London and subsequently Seattle, Santiago di Chile and Gothenberg.