May 27, 2006
Skagit Valley Herald
Associated Press
Seattle – Archie Drake, a Seattle Opera bass and baritone who also sang at other operas in the West, is dead at 81 from a heart attack following his last performance.
Drake, who came from the same English family that includes Sir Francis Drake, collapsed at the door of his apartment Saturday night after the company’s last performance of Verdi’s “Macbeth” and died Wednesday, opera officials confirmed to The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
“For me, opera is basically an exploration of the human spirit,” Drake told Seattle Opera Magazine in 2001. “It can take you further into emotions and feelings and concepts and understandings and divining than any other way.”
Known for never missing a performance, Drake appeared in more than 1,000 performances and sang 109 roles for the Seattle Opera and also performed with the Houston Grand Opera, Arizona Opera and Portland (Ore.) Opera.
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What sad news this is to the Seattle music scene. Archie Drake was one of the people I looked up to as a child. One of those people that was a role model to me of how music was supposed to be. He was extremely serious, and playful at the same time. He took time to talk with the kids he worked with, and treated them as equals.
Archie Drake performed the part of one of the kings in Amahl and the Night Visitor back in 1979. I performed the part of Amahl. A couple years before that I was in the Seattle Opera performances of Carmen, Boris Gudonov and Tosca. Archie was in Tosca with us, in fact he played the part that oversaw the boychoir in the opera. It was very fun.
Archie probably would not have remembered me. I’m just one of many lives that he touched with his passion for the arts. I had kept up with many of his performances even while I was in California. The sad part is now that I’m settled back in the Seattle area I had planned on catching one of Archie’s performances. I didn’t think that time was ticking. There’s a lesson in that for me. There’s a few other people I was going to catch up with too, so I think I’ll get right on that.
Thank you Archie. Heaven’s choir sounds a little more beautiful today…..