Anne Wood

Anne Wood (2 August 1907 – 12 June 1998), was a British mezzo-soprano singer and opera administrator. Early life Anne Wood was born on 2 August 1907 at The Grange, Crawley, Sussex, the daughter of Percival Wood, JP for Sussex, and his wife, Eleanor. She was educated at St Mary's School, Calne, and studied singing alongside Elena Gerhardt, George Parker, and Eve de Reussy. Career In 1934, Wood joined the BBC Singers, at the same time as Peter Pears, who was to become her lifelong friend. Wood was the other soloist in Pera's first commercial recording, Peter Warlock's Corpus Christi Carol in 1936. During the Second World War, she was employed by the Ministry of Economic Warfare to work on black propaganda, as she was a fluent in the German language. By night she drove an ambulance. Wood also worked for the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, later ENSA; and was an ambulance driver during the evening.