This feature appears in the August 2018 issue of Limelight Magazine. Click here to buy a copy.

Consider this: Boy from the Shire wins Big Mac, goes overseas, settles in Orlando and becomes the first Australian to sing Tristan at the Met. While a great number of column inches seem to be expended weighing the various soprano candidates for the title of the next Joan Sutherland, spare a thought for Stuart Skelton, the Aussie Heldentenor who has gone calmly about his business and quietly conquered the world over the past two decades. More burly bulldog than seductive siren, maybe no Antipodean singer today is more deserving to shoulder Dame Joan’s mantle (though perhaps try to avoid the visual on that one…)

Though he hasn’t performed with Opera Australia in five years, the good news is that he returns this month to sing his first full Antipodean Tristan und Isolde in Perth, followed by a whistle-stop trip to sing Peter Grimes – the role with which he is perhaps most closely associated – in September’s Brisbane Festival. And there’s more: his debut solo album, Shining Knight, is now out on ABC Classics.