Opera Career
During part of World War II, Brannigan was in charge of construction work building army camps, but he was able to make some broadcasts on BBC radio. In 1939 he took part in a BBC studio production of Ralph Vaughan Williams's Hugh the Drover. Joan Cross heard him broadcast and invited him to join the Sadler's Wells Opera, with whom he made his professional operatic début in 1943, at age 35, as Sarastro in Mozart's The Magic Flute. He was with Sadler's Wells from 1944 to 1949 and from 1952 to 1958. There he created the role of Swallow in Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes (1945). He performed at Glyndebourne Festival Opera from 1947, and at Covent Garden from 1948. At Glyndeborne, in other Britten premières, he created the roles of Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia (1946), and Superintendent Budd in Albert Herring (1948). Later, Britten wrote the parts of Noye in Noye's Fludde (1958), and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960), with Brannigan in mind. Brannigan's repertoire ranged from the earliest operas, including La Calisto by Francesco Cavalli and The Fairy-Queen by Henry Purcell, to modern operas, not only by Britten but other composers including Malcolm Williamson.
Brannigan was known for his roles in comic operas. Of his performance in Don Pasquale at Sadler's Wells, The Times reported, "Brannigan dodders deliciously in the title role, an irresistible noodle with a ludicrous ripeness in his tones and a vivid appreciation of the humour." He was also admired for his Osmin in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, in which he displayed both his buffo and his dramatic skills. He appeared in the 1953 film The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan, and in several Gilbert and Sullivan concerts at the Proms. Of the first of these, in 1955, The Times wrote, "So far as comedy was concerned, Mr Owen Brannigan won hands down in his magnificently done Sentry's Song (from Iolanthe)."
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