Jenifer Vyvyan

Jenifer Vyvyan was born in Broadstairs, Kent, in March 1925 and trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Roy Henderson. She won the Geneva International Music Competition in 1951 and made her operatic début with the English Opera Group the following year. She remained a central member of the group through Britten’s career.

Britten composed several leading soprano roles with her voice in mind. She created Penelope Rich in *Gloriana* (1953), the Governess in *The Turn of the Screw* (1954), Tytania in *A Midsummer Night’s Dream* (1960), and Mrs Julian in *Owen Wingrave* (1971). Her wider repertoire included Mozart (Donna Anna, the Countess, Constanze in *Die Entführung aus dem Serail*), the Handelian operatic and oratorio roles, the soprano parts in Stravinsky’s *The Rake’s Progress*, and a substantial body of contemporary British concert and operatic music. She was particularly admired for the precision of her vocal technique and her command of the difficult coloratura and modern tessituras the British contemporary composers wrote for her.

Vyvyan died of cancer in London in April 1974, aged forty-nine — a substantial loss to British music. Music Preserved’s archive includes a range of her Britten and contemporary British work.