Richard Lewis; English Opera Star

Richard Lewis, the noted English tenor who appeared regularly in Los Angeles in the 1950s and ‘60s with the San Francisco Opera and who specialized in the operas of Monteverdi, Mozart, Schoenberg and Britten, has died at his home in Eastbourne, England.

He was 76 and died Tuesday of complications of a recent stroke.

A boy soprano until his teens, he studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music in London and made his operatic debut in 1939 with the Carl Rosa Opera Company.

In 1947 he first appeared at the Glyndebourne Festival as the Male Chorus in Britten’s “Rape of Lucretia,” and that same year first performed at Covent Garden.

At Covent Garden he was heard in “The Tales of Hoffmann” and “Carmen” and in 1954 created the role of Troilus in William Walton’s “Troilus and Cressida.”