Clifford Grant obituary

My husband, Clifford Grant, who has died aged 91, was an operatic bass singer known for many roles with Sadler’s Wells Opera, Covent Garden Opera, Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne, San Francisco Opera, and the Metropolitan and Australian operas.

Cliff was born in Randwick, Sydney, to Patrick (“Pomp”) Grant, a commercial artist, and Rotha (nee Millar). Having completed his education at St Andrew’s Cathedral school, Sydney, he studied at the Sydney Conservatorium and began his singing career with New South Wales Opera and Victorian Opera.

After being “discovered” by Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge in 1965, he joined the Joan Sutherland/JC Williamson opera company in Australia as principal bass. Later the same year he travelled to London to audition for Sadler’s Wells Opera (later English National Opera) where the managing director, Stephen Arlen, immediately offered him a contract as principal bass.

He made his debut at “the Wells” as Da Silva in Verdi’s Ernani. During the period from 1965 to 1976 he sang many of the best known bass roles including Padre Guardiano in The Force of Destiny; Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville; Seneca alongside Dame Janet Baker in the title role in The Coronation of Poppea; Sarastro in The Magic Flute; and Fafner, Hunding and Hagen in the Goodall Ring Cycle at the ENO.

Cliff was a stage manager’s nightmare – noisy, full of laughter, and sometimes chatting so loudly in his dressing room that he would miss his call and run on to the stage in a panic, flinging his chewing gum at the back of the scenery. He would painstakingly collect it on the way back.

I first met him in 1969 at ENO when, as assistant stage manager, I had the task of holding his legs from the top of a very tall structure, in Don Giovanni, with nothing to steady him but a wobbly pole. Cliff was terrified of heights.

He returned to Australia in 1976, where he joined Australian Opera, playing principal roles until retiring in 1990 to run his own art gallery in Sydney.

I met him again by chance in Sydney in 1991, and we married a few months later. Cliff played his final operatic role with Opera North as Alvise in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda in 1993.

We lived in London for nine years and moved back to Sydney in 2000. Cliff was awarded the OAM (Order of Australia Medal) in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his services to the performing arts.

Cliff was also a talented artist who held several one-man shows in London and Sydney. He designed and built magnificent extensions to his house in Glebe.

We parted in 2008, but remained firm friends and never divorced. He is survived by me, Victoria, Suzie and Richard, the children from his first marriage to Jeanette (nee Earle), which ended in divorce, and by his grandchildren, Stefan, Lily-Grace, Benji and Jessica.