The Guyana-born, Trinidad-raised soprano had a wide-ranging career spanning Glyndebourne and Covent Garden to the creation of the Duchess in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face.
British soprano Jill Gomez, whose career encompassed opera, concert performances and broadcasting and who created the central role in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face, has died aged 83.
Gomez was born in New Amsterdam, Guyana, in 1942, and grew up in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago before moving to England as a teenager. She went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
From Glyndebourne to Covent Garden
Gomez began her professional career at Glyndebourne, initially singing in the chorus from 1966 to 1968. In 1967, she received the John Christie Award, established to support outstanding young singers in the Glyndebourne company.
Her early operatic work included Adina in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore with Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and she subsequently established a career encompassing both established repertoire and contemporary music.
A significant early milestone came at the Royal Opera House in London, where she created the role of Flora in the world premiere of Michael Tippett’s The Knot Garden on 2 December 1970. The production was directed by Peter Hall and conducted by Colin Davis, with a cast that also included Josephine Barstow, Yvonne Minton, Robert Tear and Thomas Hemsley.
Gomez later performed across Europe and appeared extensively in concerts and broadcasts, developing a particularly strong association with 20th-century and contemporary repertoire.
Creating the Duchess in Powder Her Face
One of the defining roles of Gomez’s later career came in 1995, when she created the Duchess in the world premiere of Thomas Adès’s first opera, Powder Her Face.
Commissioned by Almeida Opera, the chamber opera, with a libretto by Philip Hensher, was inspired by the life of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, whose highly publicised divorce became one of the great British society scandals of the 20th century.
Gomez sang the role at the premiere at the Everyman Theatre during the Cheltenham Festival on 1 July 1995, alongside Valdine Anderson, Niall Morris and Roger Bryson, with Brad Cohen conducting and David Farr directing.
The opera attracted considerable attention for both its explicit subject matter and Adès’s score and subsequently became one of the composer’s best-known works. Gomez also recorded the Duchess, with Adès himself conducting the Almeida Ensemble.
The role brought Gomez renewed acclaim more than three decades after the beginning of her career and became closely associated with her name.
A career beyond conventional boundaries
Alongside opera, Gomez maintained an extensive concert career and became a familiar presence in British broadcasting. Her repertoire ranged widely, reflecting a career that did not remain confined to the traditional operatic canon.
She was married to writer and musicologist Patrick Carnegy, who later became the 15th Earl of Northesk.
From her beginnings at Glyndebourne to the provocative world of Powder Her Face, Gomez’s career spanned several generations of British musical life — and included the creation of roles in two notable British operas written a quarter of a century apart.
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