Wagner Society Win In London For Samuel Sakker
Hearty congratulations to tenor Samuel Sakker who won first place in the finals of the Wagner Society’s 2017 Singing Competition which took place on 5 November 2017, at the Royal Overseas League in London.
The competition was adjudicated by a distinguished panel of judges led by Dame Gwyneth Jones with Dame Janet Baker, Dame Felicity Lott, Martyn Brabbins (Music Director of The English National Opera) and Peter Katona (Director of Casting, Royal Opera House Covent Garden). As part of his prize, Samuel Sakker will also receive a Bayreuth Bursary for the 2018 Bayreuth Festival.
Says Sam, “Dame Janet Baker announced me as the unanimously voted, first prize winner. It was pretty special.”
He recounts recent engagements, saying “I have been singing Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in the Kenneth Macmillan celebrations for English National Ballet and that Wednesday I had performed at Royal Opera. Also I had been doing Mainfroid in Les vêpres siciliennes, the last of which was on the night before the competition and marked my 120th show for ROH!”
For the competition Sam was accompanied at the piano by Serge Rybin and sang Erik’s Act 3 aria Willst jenes Tag’s du night dich mehr Entsinnen from Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, a role he recently performed for Cape Town Opera and Der Trunkene im Frühling from Das Lied von der Erde.
The Australian tenor had his schooling in Sydney, later graduating from the Queensland Conservatorium. He won a place on the Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artist Programme from 2014-16. Sam has been busy on the stages of both concert hall and opera theatre.
Australian audiences can hear Sam at the Adelaide Festival in 2018, singing the role of Laertes in the Australian premiere of Brett Dean’s opera Hamlet.
