tenor australis

About the Tenors

GERALD SWORD

Gerald has performed in opera and concert with many of the State Opera companies in Australia, singing some of the most favoured lyric tenor roles in Verdi’s La Traviata, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Mozart’s Don Giovanni to name but a few. Gerald has performed with Opera Australia on many occasions under the baton of such great conductors as Carlo Felice Cillario and Sir Charles MacKerras in Verdi’s Otello, Puccini’s Madam Butterfly and L’Incoronazione di Poppea. Internationally, Gerald has sung in the United States and New Zealand, and has performed the role of Cavaradossi in the English National Opera’s production of Puccini’s Tosca, to great critical acclaim. With his obvious music skills, Gerald is a vocal consultant at several schools and has now created a successful teaching practice on the Northern Beaches in Sydney.

JONATHON WELCH

Jonathon has performed under the baton of Carlo Felice Cillario and Richard Bonynge, and made the first of many appearances as a Principle tenor with Opera Australia and Dame Joan Sutherland in The Merry Widow performed at the Sydney Opera House and recorded for the ABC for worldwide distribution. Other notable performances and recordings with that company have included Turandot with legendary sopranos Grace Bumbry and Rita Hunter, and the title role in Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring. With some fifty roles to his credit, Jonathon has also recorded and performed with the ABC Symphony orchestras, Opera Queensland and Victoria State Opera in opera, operetta and musicals on stage and the concert platform. In 2002 he founded and is music director for the very successful ‘Popkiz’ and recently formed ‘Pop Choir’, based in Sydney.

Stuart has toured extensively in Europe and the United Kingdom, singing opera, operetta and oratorio for such companies as English National Opera, Kent Opera, Opera de Monte Carlo, Scottish Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He has performed and recorded the world premiere of ‘The Vanishing Bridegroom’ in Glasgow in 1991 and since returning to Australia, in 1992, Stuart has performed with the Victorian State Opera, Opera Queensland, and in 1996 took up a Principal Tenor position with Opera Australia and has performed several roles including the great dramatic role Otello in Verdi’s’ “Otello” for that company, to great critical acclaim. In 2002, he toured the outback singing Cavaradossi in ‘Tosca’, with Co-Opera, based in Adelaide. He has most recently performed in ‘Die Miestersinger von Nurnberg,’ and sings regularly as a Principal Tenor with Opera Australia.