The Sydney-born heldentenor will make his stage debut in the role in 2016.

Australian heldentenor Stuart Skelton will take the lead in a new production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde set to open the Metropolitan Opera’s 2016 season. The Sydney-born opera star will be the first of his countrymen to play the role at New York’s iconic opera house.

Skelton will star opposite Swedish soprano Nina Stemme, an experienced Isolde and probably the world’s current leading exponent of the role, while leading German bass René Pape will sing King Mark. The new production will be conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, current Chief Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, and staged by Polish director Mariusz Trelinski, whose film noir double bill of Tchaikovsky’s rarely performed Iolanta and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle has recently won considerable praise from critics and audiences alike.

“How it came about is, as always, ridiculously prosaic,” Skelton told Limelight. “I’d worked with both Sir Simon Rattle and Willy Decker [the orginal director, sadly forced to withdraw for health reasons] on separate projects and they’d spoken with each other about my suitability… it’s almost always that simple. You work with people who talk to other people and sometimes it all...