INTRODUCTION

Mario Frangoulis

As a long standing fan of the Moody Blues I was excited to hear that their lead singer, Justin Hayward, was to appear on a PBS television fund-raising program. At the appointed time and channel my wife and I settled down to watch the program, which consisted of a concert by a young tenor, Mario Frangoulis, with an obviously well-trained operatic style, a style with which my wife and I, fairly typically we assumed, were familiar but not particularly enamored. While waiting for Mr Hayward to appear we quickly realised however that Mr. Frangoulis was more than just a handsome young man with a good voice: he has a unique talent, voice and stage presence that demand notice.

By the time Mr Hayward appeared, about half-way through the show, my wife and I had already determined to find out more about Mr Frangoulis, but we still were not prepared for the Hayward-Frangoulis duet of an entirely new Italian version of the standard 'Nights in White Satin' which in my view could only be described as absolutely overwhelming. Certainly the audience thought likewise as the enthusiastic applause was continuous throughout the number.

By the time Mr Frangoulis reached his closing number, a version of E Lecevan le Stelle by Puccini called 'Sometimes I Dream' for which he wrote the music himself, my wife and I were thoroughly hooked, and couldn't help thinking that even Giacomo Puccini himself might have been proud of Mr. Frangoulis' arrangement.

Since Mr. Frangoulis had not until then given a concert in the United States the only option was to travel to his native Greece, where his concerts are usually sold-out affairs. The insanity of this idea is apparently not unique, as during her first visit to Athens for a concert my wife met fans in the audience from Malaya, Hong Kong, Turkey, England, Philippines, Colombia and USA, such is the attraction to this wonderful young talent.

Since then Mr. Frangoulis has been invited for a meagre few performances in the United States, for which fans have travelled literally thousands of miles from dozens of states to see him. The fact that he doesn't appear more often can only mean that American audiences are currently being deprived of an opportunity to witness and participate in an emotional experience that can and does alter one's perspective towards not only opera in particular but music in general, since his extensive musical repertoire includes almost everything from Verdi to Andrew Lloyd Webber via Broadway.

Although Mr. Frangoulis can be favorably compared to giants of the genre such as Placido Domingo and Pavarotti, with whom he has actually performed, to his fans he is very clearly a notch or two above the more popular idols such as Watson and Boccelli, not only in singing talent but also in sheer good looks and charming personality. His devotion to his fans has to be witnessed to be believed, and every fan will tell the same story of having been hooked the very first time they heard those sonorous tenor notes.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the music industry has an opportunity here to allow Mr. Frangoulis to do for the classics what Kenneth Branagh has done for Shakespeare.

John Walker
June, 2005