Peter Glossop: Opera singer who specialised in the great Verdi baritone roles

Peter Glossop was a genuine Verdi baritone. From his earliest days at Sadler's Wells, through many years at Covent Garden and an international career in Europe and North America, he sang a large number of the great baritone roles in Verdi's operas.

These included early operas such as Nabucco, Attila and Macbeth; middle period operas, including Rigoletto, La Traviata and Il Trovatore; and the late operas Aida, Otello and Falstaff, as well as many others. Naturally, in a career of more than 30 years, he also had a wider repertory of Italian, French and German works, while he was closely associated with Benjamin Britten's operas, in particular as a notable Billy Budd, which he sang on stage, for television and on record.

Glossop was born in 1928 in Sheffield, where he was educated at High Storrs Grammar School, going on to work as a bank clerk while studying singing with two local teachers, Leonard Mosley and Eva Rich. He made his début as Coppelius and Dr Miracle in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann with the Sheffield Operatic Society in 1949.

Engaged as a member of the chorus at Sadler's Well (now the English National Opera) in 1953, he was soon singing small – and then larger – roles. He sang Second Seaman in the world premiere of Lennox Berkeley's Nelson in September 1954, followed by Wagner in Faust, Yamadori in Madame Butterfly, Silvio in Pagliacci and Schaunard in La Bohème. Glossop sang a very well- received Count di Luna in Il Trovatore in 1956 and during the next few years – after Gérard in Giordano's Andrea Chénier, Figaro in The Barber of Seville, Zurga in Bizet's Pearl Fishers and the title role of Eugene Onegin – he sang his first Rigoletto.

Rigoletto was to become Glossop's most popular role. His voice encompassed the music without difficulty and he appeared to have limitless energy at his command in those days. Though not the most subtle of actors, he always played a character with great conviction and his reading of Rigoletto, as with many of his favourite roles, deepened over the years.

Glossop made his Covent Garden debut in 1961 as Demetrius in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, having sung the part with the company in Edinburgh earlier that year. In 1962 he sang Lescaut in the British premiere of Henze's Boulevard Solitude (a modern adaptation of the story of Manon Lescaut) given by the New Opera Company at Sadler's Wells, and also sang Iago in Verdi's Otello with Scottish Opera in Glasgow.

Meanwhile at Covent Garden, Glossop became immersed in Verdi. He sang Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera, Amonasro in Aida, Giorgio Germont in La Traviata, Posa in Don Carlos and Iago again. Posa, a noble, sympathetic character, unlike many baritone roles, became one of his finest characterisations, as did Iago, the embodiment of evil. He also took on three heavyweight assignments, the title roles of Simon Boccanegra and Nabucco as well as Rigoletto, which he also sang for his debut at La Scala in 1965 and at Dallas the following year. In 1966 he made his Paris Opera debut as Posa and sang both Posa and Rigoletto in San Francisco, where he returned in 1968 for Don Carlo, who later becomes the Holy Roman Emperor, in Verdi's Ernani.

One of the highest points in Glossop's career was his appearance as Iago in a new production of Otello conducted and directed by Herbert von Karajan at the Salzburg Festival of 1970. Jon Vickers was Otello and Mirella Freni Desdemona. By sheer chance I managed to get into the first performance, and I remember it as magical.

The following year, Glossop made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Scarpia in Tosca, later singing Don Carlo in La Forza del Destino (another of his particularly good Verdi roles). Meanwhile at Covent Garden, where he sang throughout the 1970s, his non-Verdi roles included Billy Budd, Escamillo in Carmen, Choroebus in Berlioz' Les Troyens, John the Baptist in Strauss' Salomè, Donner in Rheingold and the Herald in Lohengrin.

Glossop's only Mozart role was Don Giovanni, which he sang at Covent Garden in 1973, a notable success. In 1974 he sang Marcello in the new production by John Copley of La Bohème, only the second in the House's history.

Having been a very fine Billy in his younger days, Glossop now took on Mr Redburn, singing it at the Met in the first New York performance of Billy Budd in 1978 and at Covent Garden the following year. He gained another Verdi role in a Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in 1978, the original, 1947 version of Macbeth; he sang the more usual, 1965 version for Northern Ireland Opera in Belfast in 1981. In 1980 he returned to English National Opera, now at the Coliseum, to sing Mandryka in Strauss' Arabella. Balstrode in Peter Grimes at San Diego and Paolo in Simon Boccanegra at the Met in 1984 were reminders of a notable singer of Verdi's operas.

Elizabeth Forbes

Peter Glossop, operatic baritone: born Sheffield 6 July 1928; Principal Baritone, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 1962-67, Guest Artist 1967-79; married 1955 Joyce Blackham (marriage dissolved 1977), 1977 Michèle Amos (two daughters); died Lyme Regis, Dorset 7 September 2008.