Ann Drummond-Grant

Ann Drummond-Grant (1905 – 11 September 1959) was a British singer and actress, best known for her performances in contralto roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

Drummond-Grant became seriously ill in 1959. She gave her last performance on 23 May in Bournemouth, and underwent surgery, but died less than four months later at the age of 54.

In 1950, she returned to the D'Oyly Carte company, at first as a contralto chorister and understudy to the principal contralto Ella Halman. She deputised on occasion as Dame Carruthers in Yeomen and the Duchess of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers. In 1951, on Halman's departure from the company, Drummond-Grant became principal contralto, appearing over the next seven and a half years as Little Buttercup in Pinafore, Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance, Lady Jane in Patience, the Queen of the Fairies in Iolanthe, Lady Blanche in Princess Ida (starting in 1955), Katisha in The Mikado, Dame Hannah in Ruddigore, Dame Carruthers and the Duchess.

There are no known recordings of Drummond-Grant in her soprano roles (she can, however, be heard singing "Coming Through the Rye" as a soprano). In the early 1950s, she recorded several of the principal mezzo-soprano roles from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, although she never played them on stage. These were Mad Margaret in Ruddigore (1950), Phoebe Meryll in Yeomen (1950), Iolanthe (1951), and Lady Saphir in Patience (1951). Of her contralto roles, she recorded Lady Blanche (1955), Katisha (1957) and Ruth (1957). She was Lady Sangazure in the 1953 recording of The Sorcerer, a role she never played on stage, as the opera was not in the D'Oyly Carte repertory at the time. She played most of the contralto roles in BBC radio broadcasts with D'Oyly Carte between 1953 and 1959.

Drummond-Grant married the D'Oyly Carte musical director, Isidore Godfrey, in 1940. She played throughout the 1940s in non-musical theatre pieces, operettas (notably Waltzes from Vienna with Thomas Round), pantomime and summer shows.

In 1937, Drummond-Grant became one of D'Oyly Carte's principal sopranos. She began the season as the Plaintiff, Josephine, Patience, Phyllis in Iolanthe (sharing the role), the title role in Princess Ida and Elsie Maynard in The Yeomen of the Guard. She was selected to play Aline when The Sorcerer was revived in 1938. She won excellent reviews for her performances. Of her Ida, The Manchester Guardian wrote, "Miss Ann Drummond-Grant sang and acted the heroine's part as finely as any of her predecessors that we can remember." The paper also praised her as Patience and Elsie. However, the company was hiring new sopranos, including Helen Roberts, and Drummond-Grant lost roles or had to share them. The Times later wrote, "Being strikingly tall and well-built, she was judged to be not quite fitted for the leading soprano parts." Seeing herself sidelined, she left the company at the end of 1938.

Drummond-Grant began her career as a soprano. She joined D'Oyly Carte in 1933, but was considered by the company's management as too tall to be an ideal performer of the Savoy Operas' young soprano heroines, and left the company in 1938. During World War II she toured in a variety of theatrical shows. She married the D'Oyly Carte musical director, Isidore Godfrey, in 1940, and returned to the company in 1950 as a contralto, playing Gilbert's formidable older women, until shortly before her death at the age of 54.

In 1933, Drummond-Grant joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company chorus. In 1936 she began to play the small parts of Celia in Iolanthe, Zorah in Ruddigore, and Fiametta in The Gondoliers. She soon moved up to the larger roles of Plaintiff in Trial by Jury and Lady Psyche in Princess Ida, and she also made occasional appearances in the leading soprano roles of Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, the title roles in Patience and Princess Ida, and Gianetta in The Gondoliers.