White, Willard (Wentworth)

White, Willard (Wentworth), notable West Indian bass-baritone and actor; b. St. Catherine, Jamaica, Oct. 10,1946. He studied at the Juilliard School in N.Y., where he attended Callas’s master classes. In 1974 he made his operatic debut in Washington, D.C., as Trulove in The Rake’s Progress, and then appeared as Colline in La Bohème at the N.Y.C. Opera. He also made his European operatic debut that year at the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff as Osmin. In 1976 he made his first appearance with the English National Opera in London as Seneca in L’incoronazione di Poppea. His debut at the Glyndebourne Festival followed in 1978 as the Speaker in Die Zauberflöte, and he also sang Don Diego in L’Africaine at his first appearance at London’s Covent Garden. After appearing as Plutone in Orfeo at the Salzburg Festival in 1980, he returned to the English National Opera as Hunding in 1983 and to the Glyndebourne Festival as Gershwin’s Porgy in 1986. In 1989 he sang Wotan at the Scottish Opera in Glasgow and took the title role in Shakespeare’s Othello at the Royal Shakespeare Co. He returned to Covent Garden as Porgy in 1992, sang Golaud at the San Francisco Opera in 1995, and appeared in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre in Paris and Salzburg in 1997. In 1998 he sang Boris Godunov at the English National Opera. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1995. White has demonstrated a mastery of both vocal and dramatic elements in his varied roles as a singer and an actor.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire