Edward Downes

Sir Edward Downes was born in Aston, Birmingham, in June 1924 and studied at the Birmingham School of Music and the Royal College of Music in London. After two years as a horn player with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under George Weldon, he won a Carnegie scholarship in 1948 to study conducting with Hermann Scherchen in Switzerland. He returned to England as a staff conductor at the Carl Rosa Opera Company, then joined the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as a répétiteur in 1952.

He conducted at Covent Garden for almost forty years, beginning with Verdi’s *Otello* in 1956 and going on to lead the first British performances of Shostakovich’s *Katerina Izmailova* (1963), Prokofiev’s *War and Peace* (1972, in his own translation) and *The Gambler*, and Penderecki’s *The Devils of Loudun*. His translations of Russian operas into English became standard performing editions; he prepared singing translations of nearly thirty works across his career. He was music director of the Australian Opera from 1970 to 1976 and conducted the inaugural performance at the Sydney Opera House in 1973 — Prokofiev’s *War and Peace*.

Downes was associate music director and music director laureate of the Royal Opera House across his last decades, and principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic from 1980 to 1991. He was knighted in 1991. He died with his wife Joan in Switzerland under assisted suicide in July 2009. Music Preserved’s archive includes a substantial range of his work at Covent Garden.