John Fryatt

John James Fryatt (7 July 1927 – 7 January 2011) was an English actor and opera singer born in York who built a career spanning more than four decades in comic and character tenor roles. He studied privately with Frank Titterton from 1950 and subsequently with Joseph Hislop before embarking on a professional stage career.

Fryatt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in January 1952, initially singing in the chorus. His first named role came in 1953, when he was assigned the small tenor part of the First Citizen in The Yeomen of the Guard. The following year he took on Francesco in The Gondoliers, and in 1954 he was given his first leading role, Prince Hilarion in Princess Ida. In 1955 he appeared on Broadway with the D'Oyly Carte company, performing in The Yeomen of the Guard, Princess Ida, and Trial by Jury, in which he played the Defendant. That same year he was also assigned the role of Leonard Meryll in Yeomen and began occasionally covering Ralph Rackstraw in H.M.S. Pinafore, Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance, and Nanki-Poo in The Mikado. By 1957 he had taken on the larger role of Luiz in The Gondoliers while still appearing in chorus parts, and he also had occasion to play Earl Tolloller in Iolanthe and the Duke of Dunstable in Patience. He departed the D'Oyly Carte company in 1959.

That same year Fryatt joined Sadler's Wells Opera, again beginning in the chorus before becoming closely associated with tenor character roles in Wendy Toye's productions of Offenbach operettas during the 1960s. His Offenbach credits at Sadler's Wells included the Brazilian in La Vie parisienne, the title role in Orpheus in the Underworld, Menelaus in La belle Hélène, and King Bobêche in Bluebeard. Among his other roles at the company were Pedrillo in The Seraglio, Guillot in Manon, Spalanzani in The Tales of Hoffmann, Monostatos in The Magic Flute, and Count Hauk-Šendorf in the British premiere of Janáček's The Makropulos Case. In 1964 he created the role of Dr. Graham in Malcolm Williamson's opera English Eccentrics, and reviewer Andrew Porter singled him out as deserving special mention. The following year he created the mute role of Trim in The Mines of Sulphur, a part he reprised with Opera North in 1980. Also in 1965, with The New Opera Company, he sang the roles of Mephisto and Jacob Glock in the British stage premiere of Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel. When Sadler's Wells became English National Opera and relocated to the London Coliseum, Fryatt continued performing his Offenbach roles there.

Fryatt became particularly associated with the role of Don Basilio in The Marriage of Figaro, performing it at ENO, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and at opera houses across Britain, Europe, and America, sometimes doubling the role with Don Curzio in the same production. In 1977 he recorded the part of Don Basilio in a cast that included Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Heather Harper, and Geraint Evans, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. At Glyndebourne he also sang Monsieur Triquet in Eugene Onegin, Pisandro in Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, and Sellem in The Rake's Progress, the last of which earned praise from The Independent for his classic timing. In 1970 he created the role of Captain Lillywhite in the Glyndebourne premiere of The Rising of the Moon. His international engagements included Sellem in The Rake's Progress at Rome Opera, Sportin' Life in Porgy and Bess at Carnegie Hall, Goro in Madama Butterfly with Amsterdam Opera, and several character roles at Santa Fe Opera. At the Royal Opera House in London he sang the Dancing Master in Manon Lescaut. In 1984 he returned to Sadler's Wells to play the Duke of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers, a performance that reviewer Andrew Lamb described in The Musical Times as highly amusing. One of his final operatic appearances was the Emperor Altoum in Turandot for ENO in 1995, a performance that drew praise from Rodney Milnes in The Times, who noted that Fryatt made every word tell and brought the drama briefly to life.

Outside of opera, Fryatt revisited Gilbert and Sullivan on several occasions, singing the roles of Cyril in Princess Ida, Richard Dauntless in Ruddigore, and Marco in The Gondoliers for BBC radio in 1966, and appearing in the 1982 Brent Walker television productions of Cox and Box, as Mr. Box, and Patience, as Archibald Grosvenor. In 1987 he played Roscoe for nine months in Stephen Sondheim's Follies at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London's West End. In 1986, together with fellow former D'Oyly Carte artist Cynthia Morey, Fryatt wrote a Gilbert and Sullivan pantomime adaptation titled The Sleeping Beauty of the Savoy, and the two collaborated again in 1995 on Off the Beaten Track, featuring songs from forgotten shows.

Fryatt's recording career encompassed a range of repertoire. Among his opera recordings were the Brazilian in excerpts from Offenbach's La Vie parisienne conducted by Alexander Faris (1961), Pedrillo in Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio conducted by Yehudi Menuhin (1968), the 1977 Barenboim Marriage of Figaro, Cascada in excerpts from Lehár's The Merry Widow in a cast headed by Joan Sutherland and Valerie Masterson conducted by Richard Bonynge (1979), the turnkey in Vaughan Williams's Hugh the Drover conducted by Sir Charles Groves (1979), Pisandro in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria conducted by Raymond Leppard (1980), the dance master in Puccini's Manon Lescaut in a cast with Mirella Freni and Plácido Domingo conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli (1984), and the Rector in Britten's Peter Grimes conducted by Richard Hickox (1996). He also recorded the tenor part in Stravinsky's Pulcinella conducted by Simon Rattle in 1978.

After beginning to sing at Glyndebourne, Fryatt settled in nearby Lewes, Sussex. In his later years he served as a Vice-President of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, London. He died in Brighton at the age of 83, and his funeral was held at Woodvale Crematorium, Brighton, on 24 January 2011.