Derek Oldham

Biography

John Sephens Oldham was born in a Britsh spring and music entered his life early since his boyhood. He was singing concert solos with his boy soprano voice, and when it evolved to tenor he soon went on to a professional career, leaving his job as a bank clerk. In 1914 he made his début at the London Pavilion as lead tenor in The Daring of Diane. After serving with the Scots Guards in World War I, singing for his fellow comrades, staging The Chocolate Soldier and earning the Military Cross in Macedonia, in 1919 he was demobilized and joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, in which he stayed for three years singing the tenor leads of most of the Gilbert & Sullivan works, which would forever remain dear to his heart and took him to the West End. There he would sing during the1920s the tenor leads in a variety of musical plays : Madame Pompadour, The Merry Widow, Rose-Marie, The Vagabond King, which he combined with the Gilbert&Sullivan Savoy operettas. In 1922 he met soprano Winnie Melville as costar in Whirled Into Happiness at the Lyric Theatre. They got married and she retired for three years to study singing "seriously", reappearing in 1926 in The Student Prince. The following year they played the leads in The Vagabond King, and they would perform together in White Eagle, Blue Eyes, and vaudeville (see their photograph at the image gallery). They were also offered an exclusive contract to record for His Master's Voice. Later in 1929 they joined for a few months the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company to perform more Gilbert & Sullivan plays, including a tour to the States. In 1933 they separated, she would die in 1937. Derek also appeared in a few filmed operettas and musical films, much in vogue during that period : Her Song of Love (1934), Melody of My Heart (1936). When the operetta fever gave way to the 1940s swing music and after World War II ended, he made a turn to Lieder singing, "serious" stage plays and became a character actor, yet he stayed faithful to his Gilbert & Sullivan preferred musicals acting as an officer and later Vice-President in their Society. He performed onstage until 70 years old, when he retired to Hampshire.