John Fryatt

John James Fryatt (7 July 1927 – 7 January 2011) was an English actor and opera singer best known for his performance in comic character roles.

[2] Fryatt joined Sadler's Wells Opera in 1959, beginning in the chorus, and became associated with tenor character roles in Wendy Toye's productions of Offenbach operettas in the 1960s.

Other roles included Pedrillo in The Seraglio, Guillot in Manon, Spalanzani in The Tales of Hoffmann, Monostatos in The Magic Flute and, in the British premiere of Janáček's The Makropulos Case, Count Hauk-Šendorf.

In 1964 he created the role of Dr. Graham in Malcolm Williamson's opera English Eccentrics, and was singled out by the reviewer Andrew Porter as "deserving special mention".

[1] He occasionally revisited Gilbert and Sullivan, singing the roles of Cyril in Princess Ida, Richard Dauntless in Ruddigore, and Marco in The Gondoliers, in 1966 for BBC radio, and appearing in the 1982 Brent Walker television productions of Cox and Box (as Mr.

[9] He recorded the part of Don Basilio in a cast headed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Heather Harper and Geraint Evans, conducted by Daniel Barenboim in 1977.

[10] Also at Glyndebourne he sang in Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, Monsieur Triquet in Eugene Onegin and Sellem in The Rake's Progress, praised by The Independent for his "classic timing".

Rodney Milnes, writing in The Times praised Fryatt's performance: "often on a thread of sound, he made every single word tell, he was thinking them, and for a brief moment Turandot sprang into life as living drama rather than just noise.

In 1986, together with fellow ex-D'Oyly Carte artist Cynthia Morey, Fryatt wrote a Gilbert and Sullivan pantomime adaptation entitled The Sleeping Beauty of the Savoy.