Bryan Drake
Baritone Bryan Drake was born in Dunedin, New Zealand on 7 October 1925 and died in Aldeburgh, UK on 25 December 2001, aged seventy-six. He emigrated to the UK at the start of his career, where he became known for his roles in Britten's three Church Parables - The Traveller in Curlew River (1964), The Abbot and The Astrologer in The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966) and The Elder Son in The Prodigal Son (1968).
He sang with the Covent Garden Opera Company, Welsh National Opera, the English Opera Group, the Sadler's Wells New Opera Company and English National Opera, and at the end of his thirty year career he was Director of Opera at London's Royal College of Music and Voice Consultant to the Aldeburgh-based Britten-Pears School of Music.