Trivia

He was awarded the C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1986 Queen's Honours List for his services to music.

He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1993 (1992 season) for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for "Stiffelio.".

Sometimes confused with the late Edward Downes, former host of the Metropolitan Opera's popular "Opera Quiz".

He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 1991 Queen's Honours List for his services to music.

He and his wife Joan ended their lives at a Dignitas assisted-suicide clinic in Switzerland. He was almost blind and becoming deaf; she was terminally ill with cancer.

Children: son Caractacus and daughter Boudicca.

In 1970, he became the music director of the Australian Opera, and conducted the first performance in the iconic Sydney Opera House.

He was with the Royal Opera for 17 years. He was chief guest conductor and then principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic.

He began playing the violin at age five.

When he was 85 he had become almost totally blind and deaf. His wife was dying of cancer and was in a lot of pain. They both wanted to die together, but in Britain it is against the law to help someone to die, so they decided to go to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. There, surrounded by members of their family, they drank a fatal dose of barbiturates and died on 10 July 2009.

At the BBC Proms he shared the platform with Pierre Boulez for the Proms premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen in 1967, and conducted the Proms premieres of Die Jakobsleiter in 1968, Boris Godunov in 1971 and The Fiery Angel in 1991, as well as public premieres of George Lloyd's Symphony No. 6 and works by Roger Smalley, Elizabeth Maconchy and Jonathan Elias.

Downes was noted for his championing of British music, and especially for Prokofiev and Verdi.

A statement issued by the couple's children said that while Downes could have gone on living with his deafness and blindness, he did not want to do so after his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

In March 2010, director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer stated that Caractacus Downes would not be prosecuted for his involvement with his parents' assisted suicide because it was not in the public interest.

He was associated with the Royal Opera House from 1952, and with Opera Australia from 1970.