Kenneth Sandford - D'Oyly Carte Years

D'Oyly Carte Years

Sandford joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1957, for the pay of £37.10.00 a week (£37.50 in decimal terms – about £700 at 2007 values) He immediately assumed eight principal baritone roles: the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance, Archibald Grosvenor in Patience, Private Willis in Iolanthe, King Hildebrand in Princess Ida, Pooh-Bah in The Mikado, Sir Despard Murgatroyd in Ruddigore, Wilfred Shadbolt in The Yeomen of the Guard, and Don Alhambra del Bolero in The Gondoliers. He dropped the role of Sergeant of Police in 1962 (which he found uncomfortably low for his "creamy and slightly breathy" lyric baritone voice) and added Dr. Daly to his repertoire when The Sorcerer was revived in 1971. In 1962, he played Shadbolt in a grand production of Yeomen staged by Anthony Besch at the Tower of London as part of the first City of London Festival. The Times said, "Mr Kenneth Sandford's lean, melancholy, decidedly sympathetic Shadbolt steals the show." By this time, the copyrights on Gilbert and Sullivan had expired and, to Sandford's delight, Besch's production was completely restaged, allowing Sandford to develop a new interpretation of the role.

For the National School of Opera in 1963, Sandford took part along with Janet Baker, Jennifer Vyvyan, Marie Collier and others, in a gala at Sadler's Wells Theatre. The Times praised his "distinguished singing" and added, "we hope this talented singing actor will not remain forever in Savoy opera." Sandford had been invited to join the company of the Glyndebourne Festival in 1961, but with a young family to support he felt he could not abandon the security offered by his D'Oyly Carte contract, and thereafter "it was never the right time or the right financial deal to lure him." Sandford sometimes bridled at the D'Oyly Carte directorial "traditions". He was originally trained in his roles by Eleanor Evans (Mrs. Darrell Fancourt), then the company's stage director. Sandford later recalled,

She was quite a formidable producer and quite insistent that Gilbert and Sullivan needed a different approach from anything I had done before. Wishing to learn the mysteries I made myself very receptive to her ideas through the years I have found that there really isn't such a thing as a traditional way of playing Gilbert and Sullivan.... The important thing is that both the libretto and the music should be treated with the greatest respect... they should not be done without a twinkle in the eye.... But now, you see, I've been given a new dimension. I was allowed to make a person.... It took me about two years to get rid of the shackles of my first producer, and then I started using my imagination.... I've enjoyed doing the new productions... because I've been able to rethink completely.... All the time it's moving. It has to move; if it didn't I wouldn't be here. Because I'm quite sure you'd go scatty playing the same parts if you didn't get a lot of fun out of them yourself.... I don't go along with the idea that the operas can only be played one way. But on the other hand they've got to be done the right way.

For the 1975 D'Oyly Carte centenary season, Sandford played all his principal baritone roles as well as King Paramount in the company's first revival of Utopia, Limited since the original production. Andrew Lamb, writing in The Musical Times, thought him "outstanding" in the role. Sandford sang Ludwig in a concert performance of The Grand Duke in the same season. In addition, during that season, Trial by Jury was preceded by an original short play, Dramatic Licence by William Douglas-Home, in which Gilbert, Sullivan and Richard D'Oyly Carte plan the birth of Trial in 1875. Sandford played W. S. Gilbert in the playlet. He remained with the company for twenty-five years, ending on the company's last night, 27 February 1982.