David Rendall (1948-2025)

The versatile British tenor David Rendall, whose repertoire encompassed Rossini and Wagner, has died aged 76.

Raised in South London, Rendall sang in a covers band called ALL ON EDGE in his youth but originally intended to pursue a career in TV and radio production rather than music. His operatic potential was spotted whilst he was working as an assistant librarian on Desert Island Discs, when a producer overheard him singing ‘Questa o quella’ from Verdi’s Rigoletto after the aria had featured among a guest’s choices. (Rendall would appear as a ‘castaway’ on the programme himself fifteen years later, to coincide with his performances as Pinkerton in a Covent Garden production of Madama Butterfly).

Rendall’s BBC bosses encouraged him to pursue formal vocal training, even approaching London conservatoires on his behalf to arrange auditions, and in 1970 he took up a place at the Royal Academy of Music; upon graduation in 1973 he was offered a chorus and cover contract at Glyndebourne, where he made his principal role debut as Ferrando in Così fan tutte two years later.

Whilst studying on a summer opera course in Salzburg just after leaving the Royal Academy Rendall came into contact with Herbert von Karajan, who enlisted him to sing Tamino in a tricky section of Die Zauberflöte which had been set for the conducting students. After an impromptu audition in Berlin five years later, Karajan engaged him to perform the role at the Wiener Staatsoper and also booked him for a film of Bruckner’s Te Deum. Rendall would go on to record the Bruckner for Daniel Barenboim on Deutsche Grammophon in 1980, having made his commercial recording debut three years earlier as Ferrando (with Kiri Te Kanawa and Frederica von Stade as the sisters and Teresa Stratas as Despina).

By the early 1980s Rendall was in great demand abroad and at home, becoming a regular fixture at Covent Garden (where his early roles included the Duke in Rigoletto, Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Flamand in Capriccio and Matteo in Arabella) and English National Opera. Among his notable successes at ENO was a 1982 production of Donizetti’s Mary Stuart, in which he sang Robert Dudley opposite Janet Baker’s Mary; a live recording was issued on Chandos, with Gramophone praising Rendall’s ‘Italianate ardour’ in a rather thankless role.

Rendall’s Metropolitan Opera debut came in early 1980 (as Ernesto in Don Pasquale), and over the next decade he notched up over 130 performances at the house. It was during productions of Così fan tutte and Idomeneo at the Met that he met the lyric mezzo Diana Montague, whom he married in the late 1980s; the couple had four children together, including the outstanding baritone Huw Montague Rendall (who recently told Presto that his father was not only his first teacher but a constant source of technical insight and inspiration as he prepared new roles in the early stages of his career).

During the 1990s Rendall began to take on more dramatic roles with considerable success, including Verdi’s Otello and Radamès, Puccini’s Cavaradossi, Leoncavallo’s Canio and Wagner’s Lohengrin (where his open, Italianate sound and superb legato paid great dividends). As documented on the engaging and candid blog which he started after stepping away from the stage, his later career was dogged by health issues and pure bad luck: during a 1998 production of Pagliacci in Wisconsin he accidentally stabbed the baritone singing Silvio after the blade on his prop knife failed to retract during a fight scene (Rendall was cleared of any blame for the incident), and in 2005 he sustained significant injuries whilst singing in Copenhagen when the set collapsed mid-way through a performance of Aida.

The accident prompted his early retirement from opera, and in 2015 he took up a teaching position at the Royal Academy of Music as well as working with private students from his home in Hampshire. Rendall died on 21st July, surrounded by his family; he is survived by Diana, their children Mimi, Ed, Nell and Huw, and a daughter Elizabeth from his first marriage.

David Rendall - a selected discography