Dame Eva Turner (10 March 1892 – 16 June 1990) was an English dramatic soprano. Determined from an early age to become an opera singer, she studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and then joined the chorus of the Carl Rosa Opera Company. She was allotted increasingly important solo roles, and by 1920 was the company's prima donna.
Talent spotted by an assistant to Arturo Toscanini, musical director of La Scala, Milan, Turner was engaged to sing there in 1924, and then had an international career in Continental Europe, North and South America and at Covent Garden. She sang in a wide range of operas, including those of Wagner and Verdi, but was known above all for her performances in the title role of Puccini's Turandot.
From the late 1940s, Turner was a voice teacher, first in the US and then in Britain. Among her pupils were Amy Shuard, Rita Hunter and Linda Esther Gray.
Life and career
Early years
Eva Turner was born on 10 March 1892 in Werneth, Oldham, the elder child and only daughter of Charles Turner, chief engineer of a cotton mill, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Park. She attended Werneth council school until she was ten, when the family moved to Bristol. At the age of nineteen Turner started a four-year course at the Royal Academy of Music, where she sang in Sir Alexander Mackenzie's opera The Cricket on the Hearth. While a student she was briefly betrothed, but the wedding did not take place, and she never married.
Towards the end of her time at the academy Turner auditioned for Walter van Noorden, proprietor and conductor of the opera company that had fired her imagination in Bristol. He offered her a place in the chorus, with the prospect of promotion to solo parts. She began to study with Albert Richards-Broad, who had recently joined the management of the Carl Rosa Company. He had sung as a bass under Hans Richter at Covent Garden, and was an authority on voice production. He remained her coach, adviser and friend until his death, twenty-five years later. The following year the company returned to Covent Garden for a seven-week season, during which Turner sang all her 1920 roles and added Fricka in Das Rheingold, Brünnhilde in Die Walküre and Siegfried, Elsa in Lohengrin, the title-role in Aida and Jeanette in a short-lived one-act piece called Le chant fatal. The Carl Rosa management released her from her contract to allow her to begin an international career.
After the La Scala season, Turner joined another Italian company touring Germany. As her international career progressed she appeared in opera houses around Italy, in other European countries and in North and South America. As English opera singers were not at that time highly regarded internationally it was suggested to Turner that she might change her name, but as her biographer Sir John Tooley comments, "Proud of her Lancastrian roots, she refused". In 1928 she performed the role at Covent Garden (also playing Aida and Santuzza during the season). The Times and The Musical Times both expressed reservations about the opera but praised Turner's performance. The latter reported:
The critic in The Daily Telegraph said that Turner astonished the entire audience. In the company's first two seasons she sang Turandot fourteen times in London and another fourteen on tour.
Turner's ninetieth birthday was celebrated with a gala at Covent Garden, which included contributions, some spoken, some sung, by Geraint Evans, Tito Gobbi, Ljuba Welitsch, Victoria de los Angeles, Isobel Baillie, John Gielgud and several star singers of the younger generation, including Valerie Masterson, John Tomlinson and Hinge and Bracket.
She died in London on 16 June 1990 at the age of 98.