A familiar figure on the concert platform and a prolific broadcaster for the BBC, the tenor John Mitchinson has died at the age of 89. Many of his broadcast performances were of relatively obscure works, leading him to quip: “I think I’ve got the biggest repertoire of useless roles of anybody in the world!”
The 38 BBC Proms appearances he made between 1959 and 1964 reflected this versatility. The first two came in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis, both under Malcolm Sargent (1959, 1960) and he returned to perform the Ninth Symphony on six further occasions. In the earlier years came works by Handel (Samson, Israel in Egypt) and Purcell. He took part in the Proms premieres of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony under Charles Groves (1964) and of Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict under Colin Davis (1969). Other notable appearances were in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (three times), Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, and in the title roles of Liszt’s oratorio Christus and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex.
