CREDIT: Marcos Townsend, CanWest News Service Irish Tenor Colm Wilkinson has played some of the most beloved of stage roles, including a long run in the Toronto production of Phantom of the Opera.

Spotlight

Colm Wilkinson performs at the Jack Singer Hall on Monday.

Tickets available at Ticketmaster.

Conversation flows easily with Colm Wilkinson. The dapper international star of Broadway and London-West-End musicals paid a whirlwind visit to Montreal earlier this month to have lunch with his daughter Judith and to promote his 17-city cross-Canada tour Colm Wilkinson: Broadway and Beyond.

"Every since I did Phantom of the Opera in Toronto, I wanted to do a cross-Canada tour," the celebrated Irish tenor said as he ordered a non-dairy lunch. (Eating dairy produces phlegm, which interferes with the clarity of the singing voice.)
Wilkinson has lent his voice to the biggest of the big musicals. He played the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera and Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. He sang the role of Che Guevara on the original recording of Evita and played Judas Iscariot in Jesus Christ Superstar.

He's played the big halls of North America, hobnobbed with a pantheon of celebrities and won awards for his flawless vocals and acting, but perhaps Canadians know him best for the four and a half years he spent at the Pantages
Theatre in Toronto, performing 1,653 performances of the Phantom. The show opened at the Pantages in 1989 and went on to be the longest-running musical in the history of Canadian musical theatre.

Broadway and Beyond features the Broadway mix Wilkinson is famous for, but also a selection of old classics including Tennessee Waltz and Some Enchanted Evening and even a bit of rock 'n' roll with the Muddy Waters hit I Got My Mojo Working. No surprise, really, since the Dublin native comes from a jazz and rock 'n' roll background. (In the 1970s he toured Ireland with The Action, considered one of the top Irish bands of the era.)
"This show is about participation, knees up, dancing in the aisles," Wilkinson said.

Also on the program are Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah and Johnny Mathis' One God.

"There are people all over praying to a higher power, yet they are killing each other," Wilkinson said. "There is so much war and conflict going on. I wanted to sing about peace."
Wilkinson shares the stage with Susan Gilmour (Les Miserables), Tony Award winning mezzo-soprano Gertha Boston (Showboat), cellist Amy Lang and seven musicians.
- - - Colm in character

Irish tenor Colm Wilkinson has performed in some of the biggest musicals in theatre history. During a recent interview, the 63-year-old reminisced. Jesus Christ Superstar

(Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice)

- Wilkinson performed the role of Judas in the West End production in 1972.

"My mother was horrified when I accepted the role. She was a devout Catholic and when I told her I was going to play Judas she said, 'Colm, do you know what that man did to my Lord?' She didn't speak to me for six months."

Evita
(Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice).

- Performed the role of Che Guevara on the original white album, released in 1976.

"I was rehearsing for the very lucrative Eurovision contest at the same time (the stage version of Evita was to debut in London's West End in 1978). David Essex took on the role. After he was done, they asked me to take over the role for the Broadway version, but it meant relocating the children and doing eight shows a week, so I refused. I somewhat regret doing that."

Les Miserables

(Claude-Michel Schonberg, Alain Boublil, Herbert Kretzmer).

- Performed Jean Valjean in the original West End production which debuted in 1985 and the Broadway version which opened in 1987.

"They were looking for someone who looked like a convict, could carry a guy on his back and sung like an angel. Broadway director told Les Mis director Trevor Nunn 'That's Colm. He's Irish and living in Dublin.' Trevor would tell us in rehearsal that the show was about spirituality.

"People would come to listen to rehearsals and break down crying. I remember after singing Bring Him Home (the musical's haunting signature song) in rehearsal one day (a visitor) said 'I know you wanted someone who sang like a god. You didn't tell us you got God to sing it.' "

(The rehearsal anecdote was told following pressure from his daughter to share it with the reporter. Wilkinson is considered by many to be the definitive Jean Valjean.)

Phantom of the Opera
(Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart, Richard Stilgoe).

- Wilkinson developed the role of the Phantom in the workshop stage, but was committed to Les Miserables when the show opened in London in 1986.

"In 1988 I was home in Dublin and (Canadian producer) Garth Drabinsky called to ask me to come to Toronto for (the Canadian production) of the Phantom. I decided to do it for six months. I ended up performing it for four and a half years and becoming a Canadian citizen. I have been very fortunate in this business."

© The Calgary Herald 2007