Richard Leveridge
Encyclopedia
Bass (voice type)
A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...
singer of the London stage and a composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
of baroque music
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
, including many popular songs.
He was born in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, in 1670, and in 1695 became the leading bass singer in the company with which Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
worked, playing roles such as the magician Ismeron in The Indian Queen
The Indian Queen
The Indian Queen is a play by Sir Robert Howard, written in collaboration with John Dryden, his sister's husband. It was first performed in 1664 with incidental music by John Banister the elder...
, where he sang the major aria "Ye twice ten hundred deities". After Purcell's death he continued to work for composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
s Daniel Purcell
Daniel Purcell
Daniel Purcell was an English composer, the younger brother of Henry Purcell.As a teenager, Daniel Purcell joined the choir of the Chapel Royal, and in his mid-twenties he became organist of Magdalen College, Oxford. He began to compose while at Oxford, but in 1695 he moved to London to compose...
and Jeremiah Clarke
Jeremiah Clarke
Jeremiah Clarke was an English baroque composer and organist.Thought to have been born in London around 1674, Clarke was a pupil of John Blow at St Paul's Cathedral. He later became organist at the Chapel Royal...
. Leveridge also began to compose music, and in February 1699 all three provided music for an adaptation of Fletcher
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...
's The Island Princess
The Island Princess
The Island Princess is a late Jacobean tragicomedy by John Fletcher, initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.-The play:...
, in which Leveridge's performance was widely acclaimed.
Two books of his songs were published in 1697 and 1699, and his popular theatre songs also appeared as single sheet music. After a spell in Dublin he returned to London in 1702 for a revival of The Island Princess and a new production of Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
billed as "with music Vocal and Instrumental, all new Composed by Mr Leveridge". He sang the role of Hecate
Hecate
Hecate or Hekate is a chthonic Greco-Roman goddess associated with magic, witchcraft, necromancy, and crossroads.She is attested in poetry as early as Hesiod's Theogony...
in this work for nearly 50 years, and the music remained popular for more than a century after his death.
Leveridge became involved in the new trend for operas in the Italian style from 1705. He then began a short association with Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
in 1713 to 1714, and acted in the first performances of Il pastor fido
Il pastor fido
Il pastor fido is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was set to a libretto by Giacomo Rossi based on the famed and widely familiar pastoral poem of the same name by Giovanni Battista Guarini.-Performance history:...
and Teseo
Teseo
Teseo is an opera seria with music by George Frideric Handel, the only Handel opera that is in five acts. The Italian-language libretto was by Nicola Francesco Haym, after Philippe Quinault's Thésée...
and played Argantes in a revival of Rinaldo
Rinaldo (opera)
Rinaldo is an opera by George Frideric Handel composed in 1711. It is the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The libretto was prepared by Giacomo Rossi from a scenario provided by Aaron Hill. The work was first performed at the Queen's Theatre in London's...
. Later in his career, in 1731, he played the role of Polypheme in the first public performance of Acis and Galatea, and several of Handel's Italian aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
s were published with English translations by Leveridge.
In 1714 he moved to work at the new theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...
, managed by entrepreneur John Rich. Remaining there for most of his career, he returned to his English repertoire and a new form, the musical afterpiece. These lightweight works were often comic, and in 1716 Leveridge produced his own afterpiece, Pyramus and Thisbe
Pyramus and Thisbe
Pyramus and Thisbe are two characters of Roman mythology, whose love story of ill-fated lovers is also a sentimental romance.The tale is told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses.-Plot:...
. For this comic parody of Italian opera, he wrote the music, adapting the words from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
, and sang the role of Pyramus.
From the 1720s he was the leading bass at Lincoln's Inn Fields and then at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
. His repertory exploited his firm and powerful voice, and his tunes often became popular favourites. He composed over 150 songs, and is best known for the patriotic ballad "The Roast Beef of Old England
The Roast Beef of Old England
"The Roast Beef of Old England" is an English patriotic ballad. It was written by Henry Fielding for his play The Grub-Street Opera, which was first performed in 1731. The lyrics were added to over the next twenty years...
".
In between engagements Leveridge ran a coffee shop in Tavistock Street near Covent Garden, but enjoyed good health and reduced his performances only in the last few seasons before retiring in 1751. He died at his lodgings in High Holborn, London, in 1758.