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| One of Argo's digital-only releases from Tear's catalog |
"Robert Tear was born March 8, 1939 in Barry, Glamorgan, Wales, Uk. He attended Barry Boys' Grammar School and was a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied under Kimbell. He was later elected an Honorary Fellow of the College. His operatic debut was in 1966 as Peter Quint in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw on the English Opera Group's tour of England and Russia. In 1970, he made his début at Covent Garden as Lensky in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. He made his début as a conductor in 1985 in Minneapolis.Tear was closely associated with the music of British composers Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett. He created the role of Dov in Tippett's opera The Knot Garden. During the 1989-90 season, he made a highly successful debut with the Glyndebourne Touring Company as the tormented Aschenbach in Britten's Death in Venice. He was well-known for his duets with Benjamin Luxon, reviving many Victorian parlour songs. Tear was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (Coleg Brenhinol Cerdd a Drama Cymru). In 1984, he was awarded the CBE. He was married with two daughters and lived in West London. Tear's death was announced on 29 March 2011."
"Tear was one of the most widely recorded singers of recent years, leaving a legacy of some 250 discs that range from Haydn’s Creation to Bach, Beethoven and Bruckner — as well as songs by English composers such as Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Butterworth. He enjoyed performing away from the major opera stages, for example giving recitals of Victorian parlour songs and ballads with the baritone Benjamin Luxon, which were also recorded." [Source, Source]
