 |
This weeks feature
Mario Frangoulis. | Although still in his 20s, the tenor Mario Frangoulis has already appeared in the West End musicals ‘Les Miserables’ ...
... and ‘Phantom of the Opera’, made an album with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, toured the world with the great opera singer Alfredo Kraus and performed in the amphitheatre at ancient Epidaurus, in his adopted homeland, Greece.
Mario believes, however, there is more - much more - to be achieved. “I want to grow into an accomplished opera singer,” he says. |
|
Some would say he already is, though Mario’s career trajectory has been anything but conventional. Indeed, though he started singing at the age of four, and studied violin for ten years at the Athens Conservatorium, the theatre was Mario’s first love.
“Ever since I was a child I wanted to be in the theatre,” he says. “Music came later, in the sense of studying and taking it more seriously. I was primarily an actor.”
Mario was actually born in Rhodesia, at a time when the country was going through social and political upheavals that would lead to the creation of the state of Zimbabwe. At the age of four he was sent to live with an aunt in Athens, but he still feels a strong attachment to the country.
Taking up a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in his late teens, he found himself being nudged towards a career in opera, something he initially resisted. “I didn’t want to limit myself,” Mario recalls, “I wanted to be able to explore different styles of music. There was also a lot about opera that I didn’t like when I was 17. I thought it was stuffy people producing wonderful sounds, and that it was all rather irrelevant. I didn’t feel it connected with me.
“But when I listened to someone like Freddy Mercury, who had an amazing voice, but a very different background to an opera singer, I realised there were other possibilities. As the years went by I realised you don’t need to be a stuffy person to enjoy opera, that it was possible to relate to it at some deep level.”
‘Follow Your Heart’, Mario’s second album, is a mixture of romantic arias and new, specially-written songs. One track, however, stands out - ‘Here’s To The Heroes’, based on John Barry’s score for the film ‘Dances With Wolves’, which Mario performed at the Temple of Poseidon in Athens as part of a ‘Songs of Praise’ Olympic Special.
Much of the album has a more intimate, personal feel than it’s predecessor, ‘Sometimes I Dream’. For Mario, however, it’s just one more stop along his mucial journey. “I feel I’m learning all the time, getting roles under my belt, singing beautiful music and enjoying encountering different cultures. There’s not much more you can ask.” |
| |
|
| |
