George Harewood was an extraordinary powerhouse of a man, full of passion conveyed in his beautifully polished tones. The accent and comportment were entirely natural for George was a Lord: George Henry Hubert Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood. He was the eldest nephew of King George VI and was a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, but the big thing in his life was music.
In the 1950s he edited Opera magazine and was on the board of the Royal Opera House. From the 70s to the 90s he ran English National Opera – and, for a while, its offshoot Opera North. He also ran no less than three substantial festivals: Leeds, Edinburgh and Adelaide. Lord Harewood served as a governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation from 1985 to 1987 and as the president of the British Board of Film Classification from 1985 to 1996. He is the author or editor of three books, Kobbé's Complete Opera Book (ed. 1954, now The New Kobbé's Opera Book, edited with Antony Peattie, latest ed. 1997), The Tongs and the Bones (an autobiography, 1981), and Kobbé's Illustrated Opera Book (ed. 1989).
His long filmed interview with Maria Callas in 1968 has become a fixture in the classical DVD section.
Harewood had been infirm and in a wheelchair for some time and died of a heart-attack this morning.
George Henry Hubert Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, KBE AM
(born 7 February 1923 – died 11 July 2011)
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
Your obituary omits one of the most striking things about George Harewood’s life. While serving in the war he was captured and imprisoned by the Germans. Since the British government rightly declined the Germans’ attempt to bargain over the king’s nephew, he remained a prisoner until the end of the war. It was in those years, thanks largely to listening to the radio, that his passion for music developed.
In later years he donated land from his estate to the city of Leeds, and (it’s rumoured) he sold some of the family jewels, to his then wife’s annoyance (I don’t know if it was Marian Stein or Patricia Tuckwell at the time) to help the arts from his own pocket.
(Not strictly germane but it shows that culture runs in the family: one of his sons produced some early Morse episodes.)