Episode 379. Stuart Burrows in Duet
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So many great singing artists lost to the world of late! Almost a month ago now, the great Welsh tenor Stuart Burrows (07 February 1933 – 29 June 2025) left this mortal coil at the age of 92. Burrows was an artist of extraordinary technique, elegance, and sincerity and it has been an honor and a delight to put together this episode which celebrates his career. Because he was a favorite partner of so many exceptional divas, I decided to focus this episode on Burrows singing duets with some of the most important divas of his era. Included in the episode are Beverly Sills, Joan Sutherland, Renata Scotto, Leontyne Price, Nelly Miricioiu, Gundula Janowitz, Gwendolyn Killebrew, Margaret Price, and Reri Grist, singing Mozart, Massenet, Offenbach, Gounod, Berlioz, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, and even some Puccini. “The boys” are represented by José van Dam and Countermelody favorite Donald Gramm. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Burrows was a popular television star in the UK, starring in the eponymous BBC2 series, Stuart Burrows Sings. The episode also features two snippets from that show, one a duet with the beautiful lyric mezzo Diana Montague (whose husband tenor David Rendall died earlier this week). The episode begins with a tribute to the beloved Welsh pop contralto Iris Williams, who died on July 11 at the age of 79.
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
Stanley Myers, Cleo Laine: He Was Beautiful (Cavatina). Iris Williams [live recording UK, ca. 2013]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo da Ponte: Il mio tesoro (Don Giovanni). Stuart Burrows, Georg Solti, Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Paris [live Paris 12.III.1975]
Giuseppe Verdi, Francesco Maria Piave, Andrea Maffei [after William Shakespeare]: O figli, figli miei… Ah, la paterna mano (Macbeth) [sung in English]. Stuart Burrows, Bryan Balkwill, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra [live London 21.V.1965]
Giuseppe Verdi, Arrigo Boito [after William Shakespeare]: Pst! Pst! Nannetta… Labbra di foco! (Falstaff). Stuart Burrows, Margaret Price, Bruno Bartoletti, San Francisco Opera Orchestra [live San Francisco 07.X.1970]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo da Ponte: Qualche odor, qualche spirto… Fuggi, crudele fuggi! (Don Giovanni). Stuart Burrows, Gundula Janowitz, Herbert von Karajan, Wiener Philharmoniker [live Salzburg 27.VII.1970]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Emanuel Schikaneder: Die Absicht ist edel, und lauter und rein… Wo willst du kühner Fremdling?… O ew’ge Nacht! (Die Zauberflöte). Stuart Burrows, Donald Gramm, Peter Maag, Orchestra and Chorus of the Metropolitan Opera [live New York 23.XII.1972]
Jacques Offenbach, Jules Barbier [after ETA Hoffmann as adapted by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré]: Juste ciel! Dieu puissant!… Ah! ange du ciel (Les Contes d’Hoffmann). Stuart Burrows, Diana Montague, José van Dam, Sylvain Cambreling, Orchestre Symphonique de l’Opéra National [live Bruxelles 1985]
Charles Gounod, Jules Barbier, Michel Carré [after Carré’s play based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]: Il se fait tard… Ô nuit d’amour… (Faust). Stuart Burrows, Nelly Miricioiu, Michel Plasson, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden [live London 30.I.1986]
Jules Massenet, Henri Meilhac, Philippe Gille [after Abbé Prévost]: Toi! Vous?… N’est-ce plus ma main? (Manon) Stuart Burrows, Reri Grist, Julius Rudel, San Francisco Opera Orchestra [live SF 12.IX.1981
Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica [after John Luther Long, David Belasco]: Un po’ di vero c’è… Dolce notte, quante stelle (Madama Butterfly). Stuart Burrows, Leontyne Price, Serge Baudo, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra [live New York 06.X.1973]
Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Bardari [after Friedrich Schiller, translated Andrea Maffei: Qui volge il piede Elisabetta… Da tutti abbandonata… Del suo core… Se il io cor tremò giammai (Maria Stuarda). Stuart Burrows, Joan Sutherland, Richard Bonynge, San Francisco Opera Orchestra [live San Francisco 27.XI.1971]
Giuseppe Verdi, Francesco Maria Piave [after Alexandre Dumas fils]: Signora!… Parigi, o cara… Ah, non più, a un tempio… Ah! Gran Dio, morir si giovine (La Traviata). Stuart Burrows, Beverly Sills, Sarah Caldwell, Opera Company of Boston [live 12.V.1972]
Vincenzo Bellini, Felice Romani: Saresti tu geloso?… Son geloso del zefiro errante… Ah! costante nel mio seno (La Sonnambula). Stuart Burrows, Renata Scotto, Carlo Felice Cillario, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden [live 20.III.1971]
Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II: Make Believe (Show Boat). Stuart Burrows, Diana Montague, Robin Stapleton, The BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra [from Stuart Burrows Sings, first telecast 09.VI.1985]
Marvin Hamlisch, Marilyn and Alan Bergman: The Way We Were. Stuart Burrows, Robin Stapleton, The BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra [from Stuart Burrows Sings, 1983]
Hector Berlioz [after William Shakespeare]: L’amour est un flambeau (Béatrice et Bénédict). Gwendolyn Killebrew, Stuart Burrows, Seiji Ozawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra [live X.1977]
Dear Daniel, I just wanted to thank you for the lovely Podcast of my father Stuart Burrows. How I stumbled on it I will never know, meant to be I guess. You played some things even I hadn’t heard. Your choice of music was superb. I will be sure to share it with friends. Thank you. Meryl
Dear Meryl, I could not be more pleased to hear from you. I had been trying to figure out a way to reach you and your family and it just “happened!” His is the ideal voice I have in my mind when I think of a Mozart tenor. But as the episode proved, he was that and so much more as well. Thank you for your kind words (and for YOUR quote that I found posted somewhere on FB (the BBC page, perhaps?) All best to you, Daniel
Thank you Daniel, I don’t know if it’s possible to copy the podcast but if not would you be able to send a file to me so I can keep for my son and daughter. I could also send to some places in the UK who are planning on a few shows at Christmas time on my father. No worries if you’d rather not but thought I’d ask. All the best. Meryl
Dear Meryl, sorry, just seeing this today! I will send you an mp3 link to the complete podcast for you to share with your family and friends. Not only would it not bother me were you to do so, I would be most deeply honored in whatever small way to help commemorate your father’s marvelous legacy!