Dame Clara Butt

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Dame Clara Butt

British singer

Also known as: Clara Ellen Rumford, Clare Ellen Butt

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

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Original name in full:: Clara Ellen Butt

Born:: February 1, 1872, Southwick, Sussex, England

Died:: January 23, 1936, North Stoke, Oxfordshire (aged 63)

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Dame Clara Butt (born February 1, 1872, Southwick, Sussex, England—died January 23, 1936, North Stoke, Oxfordshire) was an English contralto known for her concert performances of ballads and oratorios.

After studying at the Royal College of Music, Butt made her debut in 1892 as Ursula in Sir Arthur Sullivan’s cantata The Golden Legend. She possessed a powerful contralto voice and a commanding personality and was admired especially in the oratorios of George Frideric Handel and Felix Mendelssohn. She also became popular as a ballad singer. Sir Edward Elgar wrote his song cycle Sea Pictures (1899) for her, and she inspired the part of the angel in his oratorio Dream of Gerontius. In 1900 she married the baritone Kennerley Rumford, with whom she gave recitals. One of her few opera appearances was as Orfeo in Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. She was appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 1920.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.