Марио Франгулис: Грек тенорінің өнер жолы

Mario Frangoulis (Μάριος Φραγκούλης; born 1967) is a Greek vocalist and theatre actor, famous for his refined tenor vocals. Born in Rhodesia, Frangoulis after his three decade long career has established himself as a critically and commercially acclaimed recording artist and vocal performer in Greece and neighbouring countries. His initial rise to international prominence came with his hit song "Vincerò, Perderò" and his rendition of the song "Nights in White Satin". Discovered by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Frangoulis has made his official theatre debut as Marius Pontmercy in Les Misérables, and later performed in The Phantom of the Opera and the rendition of Grease. He has recorded songs in Italian, Spanish, English, French, and Greek, and is fluent in all five languages.

Frangoulis was born in 1967 in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). When he was four years old he was sent to Athens, Greece to live with his maternal aunt Loula and her husband George. The couple adored him and Frangoulis considered them as his parents. At the age of eight Frangoulis began singing in various choirs, and at the age of eleven he played the part of Issachar in a school production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In 1988, during his final year, he played Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, a production in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company for the Arundel Festival. Frangoulis played the lead in the James McConnel/Kit Hesketh Harvey musical Orlando, where he was spotted by Cameron Mackintosh who after an audition offered him the part of Marius in the West End production of Les Misérables After finishing Les Misérables, Frangoulis moved to Italy where he studied with tenor Carlo Bergonzi at the Verdi Academy in Busseto, graduating six months later. After a successful audition with conductor Nicola Rescigno and the renowned tenor Alfredo Kraus, Frangoulis moved to Rome in 1990 and became Kraus' first private student, traveling with him around the world to study vocal techniques and repertory.

In 1991, Frangoulis was invited by Andrew Lloyd Webber to star as Raoul in Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theater. The same year, he appeared alongside Montserrat Caballé, Samuel Ramey and the British Youth Opera in the charity gala "Serenade to a Princess" at the Whitehall Palace, celebrating the birthday of Diana, Princess of Wales. In 1992, Frangoulis moved to The United States to continue his operatic studies. With his mentor's Marilyn Horne, suggestion and with the help of the Onassis Scholarship, he completed a three year long program of vocal courses at the Juilliard School of Music, in New York City He also sang as a Les Misérables alumnus in the Tenth Anniversary Concert of the show at the Royal Albert Hall.

In the summer of 1996, Frangoulis made his debut at the theater of Herodes Atticus, by the Acropolis, in an evening dedicated to the great memory of Leonard Bernstein, with the Orchestra of Colours ( a symphony orchestra created by Greek composer Manos Hatzidakis), singing excerpts from musicals such as West Side Story, Candide, and Our Town. The following September he returned to the Odeon to play the role of Orpheus in the Orpheus Liturgy, an oratorio that it was broadcast on Greek television. This marked the start of his collaboration with Greek composer Yannis Markopoulos – also transcribed Giannis Markopoulos. He reprised the role of Lun Tha in a concert version of the musical with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Wally Harper, with Barbara Cook and his 1996 return to the London cast of Les Misérables.

In February 1997, due to his mother's serious illness, Frangoulis returned to Greece. There he joined Athens' theatrical scene, notably through his playing Billy Kracker in Kurt Weill's Happy End with the Karolos Koun Art Theater, directed by George Lazanis, the Lead Bird in Aristophanes' comedy The Birds, directed once more by George Lazanis which was performed in almost every major ancient amphitheater of Greece, such as Epidaurus, Sparta, Filippoi and many more. In September 1997 he was offered the leading role of Danny Zouko in the musical Grease, directed by David Gilmore. Once more, it was a great success with the Greek media and a great start of Frangoulis's popularity with the Greek public. The same season, he appeared in late night shows in the prestigious music hall "Iera Odos", alongside the Greek star George Dalaras, singing popular Greek, Italian and Spanish songs. This production toured Greece and Europe as well (London, Paris, Brussels, Helsinki, Munchen, Berlin, and Frankfurt) very successfully and it turned out to be the best selling CD (by EMI Greece), which soon after went platinum. Representatives of Sony Music heard Frangoulis in one of these shows and they arranged him to be introduced to Peter Gelb, the head of Sony Classical. The result of this introduction was, the signing of an exclusive contract for 2 CDs and 3 CDs optional, enabling Frangoulis to start an international recording career at the highest level. His collaboration with prestigious Greek composers continued with his appearance in the May 1998 Herodes Atticus Theater performance of Mikis Theodorakis' "Axion Esti", a musical rendition of the historic poem "Axion Esti" as well by Nobel prize winner Odysseas Elytis.

In July 2000, Frangoulis was the first Greek tenor to perform at La Scala, in Milan as Tony in West Side Story. In August, he sang the title role in Yannis Markopoulos' Erotokritos at the Herodes Atticus theater, and returned to the same venue, later that month for a solo recital there, to celebrate his ten years anniversary as a professional performer on stage. The repertoire included Greek and international songs. This great production was recorded to a CD and very successfully was toured all over Greece.

At the beginning of 2001, Frangoulis took part in a charity opera gala at the Athens Concert Hall, along with stars of the Greek National Opera. That May, he was one of the leading artists in an evening called Viva Verdi, This performance was recorded and released on a DVD. In October, Frangoulis began a grand tour around Europe, the US and Asia in order to promote his new album 'Sometimes I Dream'. In November, his new DVD "Sometimes I Dream" was broadcast on PBS in The United States. At the end of the year, Frangoulis appeared with the Greek singer Maria Farantouri, in the Millennium Festivities on New Year's Eve under the Acropolis in Athens.

On 30 January, Frangoulis was invited by the Athens 2004 Olympic Games committee to give a concert at the Athens Olympic Stadium. In March he made his first appearance at the Greek National Opera, where he sang opera arias and duets as well as songs and duets from various musicals with soprano Elena Kelessidou. In June of that year he appeared at the Ulriksdal festival, Stockholm, accompanied by the Swedish Symphonic Orchestra. In August, Frangoulis also took part in the final concert of the Torch Relay at the Athens Olympic Games. In this event he performed the song 'Here's to the Heroes' for the first time which was shown as part of the UK's BBC Songs of Praise Olympics Special. In 17 September he took part at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2004 Summer Paralympics in a front of more than 70 hundred people at the Athens Olympic Stadium. On 1 October, he deepened his relationship with jazz with an appearance at the Herodes Atticus theater, shared with soprano Barbara Hendrics, singing songs such as "Mack the Knife", "Unforgettable", "When I Fall in Love", "My Baby Just Don't Care for Me" and "Les Feuilles Mortes", "I Get a Kick out of You", Cole Porter's "You're the Top" and "So in Love", finishing with "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye". He then flew to Japan where, on 11 October, he gave a concert at the Bunkamura Orchard Hall with the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Shuya Okatu and soprano Maki Mori. He sang songs from "Sometimes I Dream", as well as "O Sole Mio", "Granada", excerpts from Theodorakis' Canto General and the "Brindisi" from La traviata. In November, he was in the United Kingdom for eight concerts with soprano Hayley Westenra. In November 2004 Frangoulis' second international album Follow your Heart was released.

During the months of February and March he was in the US for his first American tour of 28 cities with pianist Jim Brickman and Ann Cochran, to promote his album. In April he took a break to give concerts in South Africa (Sun City), with Vicky Sampson. Then he continued his tour visiting Canada, Los Angeles, San Francisco. On 20 May, he gave his first solo concert in the US, at the New York City Center, with guest artist soprano Liza Vroman. This was followed by two other concerts. One at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore, Maryland and another one at the Sheldon Hall in St. Louis, Missouri. In June he performed at a black tie event at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Arts Center in Wisconsin. In July, Frangoulis performed his first concert in Istanbul, a sold out outdoor concert under the auspices of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. He spent the rest of the summer in Greece for his usual concert tour around the country, culminating with the "Music of the Night" concert held in October at the Herodes Atticus theater accompanied by the New Opera of Moscow Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Later that month, he took part in Plácido Domingo's concert in Cyprus, featuring Kallen Esperian, accompanied by the Cyprus State Symphony and the Moscow New Opera Symphony Orchestra.

Frangoulis completed his new album Amor Oscuro (Skotinos Erotas), dedicated to the Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca. In April he performed with Elena Kelessidi and the Baltimore Opera Company orchestra at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore
and in October he returned to The United States for a concert in Boston. In December, Frangoulis released another album: "Passione" a collection of songs that Mario Lanza performed.

Frangoulis toured in the United States leg of Sarah Brightman's "The Symphony World Tour".

Frangoulis had various appearances in great Athenian and other Greek venues in those two years. He was invited by the Special Olympics Committee to take a major part on the opening ceremony of the event in June 2011. Since he loves and adores children, Frangoulis gave a compassionate, loving and warmhearted performance, presenting a song from his new third international album Beautiful Things, which was first released in a place that occupies a very special spot in Frangoulis' heart: the country of Greece. The album was released in November 2011. It was released in the United States and the rest of the world in winter of 2012.

Frangoulis had a successful appearance with the Boston Pops Orchestra and Hayley Westenra at Symphony Hall in Boston the month of June. He continued his summer with a multi city tour in his native Greece where he concluded it with his first official concert of Beautiful Things album, in a majestic night under the August blue moon, at the Herodes Atticus Theater in Athens, Greece.

In 2014 Mario Frangoulis performed with the acclaimed Norwegian soprano Sissel at a concert on Friday 5 September at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Greece. This concert, "Sing Me An Angel" was held in aid of the Non Profit Organisation "I Live For Me" and it was made for broadcasting on American television in 2015, on PBS. They performed several duets like "You Raise Me Up", "Smile" and "What A Wonderful World".

In 2016 Frangoulis recorded a duets album in Greek with Greek singer George Perris titled "Kivotos" which included covers of popular Greek art songs from the 80s and 90s. The album peaked to #3 in the Greek Album Charts.