Otakar Kraus

Otakar Kraus ( born December 10, 1909 in Prague, Czech Republic, † July 28, 1980 in London, England) was a Czech, later British, opera singer (baritone ) and educator. He was the teacher of the three largest UK bass the last 30 years, Robert Lloyd, Willard White and John Tomlinson. Even the lesser known Welsh bass Gwynne Howell was one of his students.

Kraus studied in Prague and Milan singing and debuted in 1935 as Amonasro ( Aida ) in Brno. 1936-1939 he sang in Bratislava, 1939-1941 at the Prague National Theatre in 1941 in Covent Garden. Although he sang in the world (including the Alberich at the Bayreuth Festival ), be discounted graphical reduction is not very large. His artistic immortality is based, except to his students, to his long-time incarnation of Nick Shadow from Igor Stravinsky's The Rake 's Progress, the first performer he was. Also he was the interpreter of Tarquinius at the premiere of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, 1946 in Glyndebourne.