• Advertise
  • About us
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Contact us
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Australian Times News
  • News
    • Weather
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Business & Finance
      • Currency Zone
    • Lotto Results
      • The Lott
  • Lifestyle
    • Entertainment
    • Horoscopes
    • Health & Wellness
    • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Expat Life
  • Move to Australia
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Weather
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Business & Finance
      • Currency Zone
    • Lotto Results
      • The Lott
  • Lifestyle
    • Entertainment
    • Horoscopes
    • Health & Wellness
    • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Expat Life
  • Move to Australia
No Result
View All Result
Australian Times News
No Result
View All Result
Home Lifestyle

Australian tenor Stuart Skelton flies to the rescue

Australian operatic tenor Stuart Skelton will perform in the English National Opera's new production of Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman."

Will Fitzgibbon by Will Fitzgibbon
27-04-2012 09:40
in Lifestyle
Stuart Skelton

Stuart Skelton
WHEN the scheduled tenor for the English National Opera’s upcoming production of Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, Australian Julian Gavin, fell sick, the ENO made a trans-Atlantic call to another Australian, operatic star Stuart Skelton.

No worries that Skelton was already booked to sing the role of Siegmund in Die Walküre on 13 April 2012 with none other than the New York Metropolitan Opera.

With a bit of flexibility from The Met, Skelton was able to notch up some more frequent flyer points and save the day for the ENO.

“I’m able to be here in London for opening night and a few performances before I fly back to New York, I think, for 48 hours, on the 5th for a performance on 7th,” Skelton recounts, “before I fly back to London on the 8th for a performance on the 12th.”

Already in talks with opera companies for 2016, Skelton is clearly a musician in demand.

After putting aside his undergraduate economic textbooks in the early 2000s, Skelton won a prestigious opera scholarship to study in the United States. The accolades and the professional invitations have been plentiful ever since.

Successes in major operatic venues across Europe, the USA and Asia and appearances with classical musical legends including Daniel Barenboim have cemented Skelton’s status as a world-class singer.

AlsoRead...

Will Smith

Will Smith speaks out about Oscars slap in new Instagram video

30 July 2022
Mirror

Mirror: Investigation follows after bands concert incident

30 July 2022

Now living in Florida, Skelton has made a name for himself as what the opera buffs know as a “heldentenor”. With powerful, booming voices that can reach the back of opera halls the size of hangars, heldentenors are usually associated with the operas of German giants Wagner and Richard Strauss.

London has been a constant venue of success and Skelton has not missed an opera season in the Old Dart’s capital since his debut with the ENO in 2006. Recent performances in Peter Grimes (2009) and Parsifal (2011) were greeted with unbridled acclaim.

“It’s a company and a city that have been incredibly kind to me,” Skelton says of London and of the English National Opera. “Australia will always be home, make no mistake, but this is my home company.”

For this season’s production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman Skelton will reprise the role of Eric, one that he has already interpreted almost 90 times.

Eric is the loser of a highly unusual love triangle. His long-term girlfriend, Senta, falls in love with The Flying Dutchman, the cursed captain of ghoulish schooner akin to the Black Pearl in Pirates of the Carribean. Senta’s love and death releases The Flying Dutchman from the devil’s curse that had him sail the seas forever.

Eric, understandably, is far from pleased that the woman he expected to marry runs off with a cobweb-ridden phantom.

But playing Eric as a sobbing pantywaist is what Skelton tries to avoid.

“He is sort of a nice guy who finished last, to a certain extent,” Skelton explains. “But I think it’s something I try to avoid, turning him into what the Germans would call a Weichei or ‘soft egg.’ He’s not a whiner. He’s not a mummy’s boy. When he comes on, he’s confrontational with Senta. ‘Hey, what they hell are you doing?’ he says to her.”

And despite almost making a century of Eric appearances, Skelton’s Eric is far from getting stale.

“It’s not a difficult job to stay fresh in it because there are so many different things each time,” says Skelton.

“I’m a firm believer that all of the really great composers give you everything you could possibly ever need in the score, more than you could possibly use, to make a successful and compelling character.”

The Eric in the 2012 ENO production, directed by notable former theatre director Jonathan Kent, is more physical than those Skelton has played in the past.

“It’s about making the performance roles as filmic as possible,” explains Skelton. “It’s not about big gestures and funny dresses. It’s about what two people would do, how they would really react, in such situations.”

This winter Down Under, Australian audiences will have the rare chance to see Skelton live. After a North American production fell through, leaving him with ten week gap in his schedule, Skelton was quickly engaged by the Tasmanian, Adelaide and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras.

“Serendipitous in the extreme,” says Skelton, smiling at his own understatement: his Australian visit takes him right up to the day before he must return to London for a performance in The 2012 Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.

The Flying Dutchman runs until 5 May. For further details, visit Eno.org/see-whats-on/productions/production-page.php?itemid=1882

Tags: AsiaAustralianMusicoperaStage and screen
DMCA.com Protection Status

SUBSCRIBE to our NEWSLETTER

[mc4wp_form id=”2384248″]

Don't Miss

How to make a Sports Resume?

by Alan Aldridge
17 August 2022
How to make a Sports Resume?
Business & Finance

If you're interested in working in the sports industry, you'll probably want to know how to write a sports resume....

Read more

Horoscopes: 17 August 2022 – Wednesday

by Adamu
17 August 2022
Free Daily Horoscope - Astrology
Horoscopes

Keep your karma positive with these daily free horoscopes!

Read more

Weather Forecast 17 August 2022

by Adamu
17 August 2022
May's Weather Forecast
Australia Weather

Be prepared for any weather with our daily weather forecast for Australia.

Read more

Weather Forecast 16 August 2022

by Adamu
16 August 2022
May's Weather Forecast
Australia Weather

Be prepared for any weather with our daily weather forecast for Australia.

Read more

Horoscopes: 16 August 2022 – Tuesday

by Adamu
16 August 2022
Free Daily Horoscope - Astrology
Horoscopes

Keep your karma positive with these daily free horoscopes!

Read more

Horoscopes: 15 August 2022 – Monday

by Adamu
15 August 2022
Free Daily Horoscope - Astrology
Horoscopes

Keep your karma positive with these daily free horoscopes!

Read more

Weather Forecast 15 August 2022

by Adamu
15 August 2022
May's Weather Forecast
Australia Weather

Be prepared for any weather with our daily weather forecast for Australia.

Read more
Load More

Copyright © Blue Sky Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
australiantimes.co.uk is a division of Blue Sky Publications Ltd. Reproduction without permission prohibited. DMCA.com Protection Status

  • About us
  • Write for Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact us
  • T&Cs, Privacy and GDPR
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Weather
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Business & Finance
      • Currency Zone
    • Lotto Results
      • The Lott
  • Lifestyle
    • Entertainment
    • Horoscopes
    • Health & Wellness
    • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Expat Life
  • Move to Australia

Copyright © Blue Sky Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
australiantimes.co.uk is a division of Blue Sky Publications Ltd. Reproduction without permission prohibited. DMCA.com Protection Status