Ritchie, Margaret (Willard)
Ritchie, Margaret (Willard)
Ritchie, Margaret (Willard) , English soprano; b. Grimsby, June 7, 1903; d. Ewelme, Oxfordshire, Feb. 7, 1969. She studied at the Royal Coll. of Music in London and with Plunket Greene, Agnes Wood, and Henry Wood. She established herself as a prominent concert artist early in her career, and also was the principal soprano of Frederick Woodhouse’s Intimate Opera Co. Later she sang with the Sadler’s Wells Opera in London (1944–47), at the Glyndebourne Festivals (1946–47), with the English Opera Group (from 1947), and at Covent Garden in London. From 1960 she taught voice in Oxford. She created the roles of Lucia in The Rape of Lucretia (1946) and of Miss Wordsworth in Albert Herring (1947). As a concert artist, she was much admired for her Schubert lieder recitals.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire