Stuart Skelton
Melba's Ring reverberating around the world
16 May 2007
Maria Vandamme, CEO of Melba Recordings, accepted the prestigious Prix Lauritz Melchior on behalf of Australian tenor Stuart Skelton in Paris recently - awarded for his contribution to Melba Recording's CD of Die Walküre, the first instalment of Wagner's epic Ring Cycle recorded by Melba in state-of-the-art Super Audio sound.
Named after the legendary Danish-American tenor, the Prix Lauritz Melchior is awarded by the Académie Nationale du Disque Lyrique in France in recognition of the year's most outstanding Wagnerian Tenor in a recording.
The ceremony at the Bastille Opera was presided over by Pierre Bergé, founder of the company Yves Saint Laurent, former director of the Opera National de Paris. The honorary committee was headed by Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, French Minister of Culture and Communication.
Also present were Gérard Mortier, Director of the Paris National Opera and Eva Wagner, great-grand daughter of Richard Wagner.
Monsieur Clym, President of the Académie du Disque Lyrique, stated that Melba's recording of Wagner's Ring was not only a great achievement, but also significant as the first ever complete Australian rendition of Wagner's Ring cycle. The recordings were made in 2004 at the time of the State Opera of South Australia's presentation of Wagner's Ring cycle, with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Asher Fisch.
M. Clym praised the performance of Stuart Skelton as Siegmund, which so impressed the Academie's Jury, which included French opera critics, film makers and opera house directors. Wolfgang Wagner, the composer's grandson, was a Jury member.
Opera critics have been enthusiastic in their regard for Stuart Skelton's performance.
"Steely of tone, and impressively elastic in his range, Skelton is the most promising young Wagnerian to emerge from Australia since [Lisa] Gasteen." Bloomberg (USA)
"Stuart Skelton's Siegmund is a major find…a fully fledged dramatic tenor with tremendous power and expressiveness and also capable of much sensitive lyrical singing…beautiful, manly and steady". MusicWeb International (UK)
"Stuart Skelton shows himself as a Siegmund full of promise, with a large, flexible voice and a truly heroic stature." Frankfurter Allgemeine (Germany)
"Stuart Skelton is, quite simply, one of the best Siegmunds on disc." The Age (Australia)
A native of Australia, Stuart received his early vocal training in Sydney and later studied at the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music. Following an invitation to join the prestigious Adler Fellowship in San Francisco, he became the first Australian to win the Belvedere Competition in Vienna.
Stuart has an extensive opera and vocal repertoire that includes many of opera's most challenging roles, including Wagner's Siegfried, Lohengrin and Parsifal, Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes and Beethoven's Florestan.
He has sung at many of the world's leading opera houses, recital halls and music festivals. In the 2006/07 season he made his debut at English National Opera as Laca in Jenufa, sang Don José (Carmen) in San Francisco, Max (Der Freischütz) and the Kaiser (Die Frau ohne Schatten) at the Staatsoper Hamburg (under fellow Australian and Melba Recordings artist Simone Young), and reunited with The Ring conductor Asher Fisch for his first Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos) in Tel Aviv. For Opera Australia, he will sing Mitch (A Streetcar Named Desire) in a production directed by the renowned film director, Bruce Beresford in August 2007.
Concert appearances in the current season include the title role in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex for the Orchéstre symphonique de Montréal, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Beethoven's Symphony No 9 with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Stuart Skelton's award is the latest honour to be received by a Melba Recordings artist and further establishes the young company as an innovative classical recording label.
Three of the four operas in Melba's Ring Cycle - Die Walküre, Das Rheingold and Siegfried - have already been released. The final instalment completing this historic recording project, Götterdämmerung, will be released later this year. The presenting sponsor of Melba's Ring Cycle is Dr Douglas G Mitchell.
Website: http://www.melbarecordings.com.au/
