Philip Doghan
Postman’s son who became a favourite operatic tenor at Glyndebourne and Covent Garden
PHILIP DOGHAN, who has died aged 70, was a tenor whose operatic career began at the age of 11 when, in February 1961, he appeared (uncredited) as a fairy in the first London staging of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Covent Garden; the following year he was the boy Paris in the world premiere of Michael Tippett’s King Priam at the Coventry Festival and Covent Garden.
As an adult Doghan continued to be at the forefront of contemporary opera, with roles in televised productions of Harrison Birtwistle’s Yan Tan Tethera and Tippett’s The Knot Garden, both for Channel 4. He was also seen in more traditional operas, such as Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro at Covent Garden in April 1994 in which he played Don Basilio alongside Bryn Terfel’s Figaro.
Not everything would go to plan. Three months after his appearance in Figaro Doghan was singing
Guillot in Massenet’s Manon at Covent Garden when Anthony Michael-moore, who was Lescaut, failed to join him for the first-act finale, having suddenly collapsed with a gastric infection. Doghan, whose performance was described as “excellent [and] sharply observed”, was left singing to an empty stage.
Philip Doghan was born in London on June 26 1949 and adopted at birth by Jimmy Doghan, a postman, and his wife Betty. He attended Westminster City grammar school and played viola with the London Schools Symphony Orchestra before reading music at Durham University under the musicologist Arthur Hutchings.
He took voice lessons with Rupert Bruce Lockhart before studying singing in Rome with Luigi Ricci and then spent three seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in plays such as As You Like It and Murder in the Cathedral with vocal parts especially composed for him. Doghan was also a professional keyboard player, and in 1974 played harpsichord for the British premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s The Bassarids at English National Opera, conducted by the composer.
Returning to the opera stage, he joined Glyndebourne Festival Chorus in 1975 and the following year appeared as the lover-cook Hot Biscuit in the English Music
Theatre Company’s production of Britten’s Paul Bunyan at Snape Maltings and Sadler’s Wells – where, according to Opera magazine, he “had just the right blend of natural charm and warm voice”.
In 1980 he was the first Briton to win first prize at the Toulouse International Singing Competition, which led to a series of engagements in European opera houses, including Strasbourg.
As an actor Doghan was extremely agile. In 1987 he appeared in a rare staging of The Decision by Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler at Union Chapel, Islington, in which he was described as “giving an unforgettable singing-and-acting cameo, leaping about like a malignant toad”.
That all changed, however, in 1996, when he fell from the stage into the orchestra pit at Cologne Opera, suffering severe injuries. It took an operation, eight months of physiotherapy and three years of intense Pilates before he was able to return to the stage.
He recuperated sufficiently to make debuts at the Aix and Salzburg festivals, as well as appearing in Naples, Florence and Los Angeles, although his British stage career never recovered.
Since 2004 Doghan had been Professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of Music, specialising in oratorio and the German repertoire. He also taught in Zurich, Copenhagen and Cologne. In 1991 he was awarded the John Mccormack medal in Dublin for his services to singing,
To his great joy he was reunited last year with his birth mother and five siblings.
Philip Doghan’s first marriage, to the mezzo-soprano Diana Montague, was dissolved, and in 2018 he married Joanna Soane, who survives him with a son from his first marriage.
Philip Doghan, born June 26 1949, died January 28 2020