ONLY grand opera could have a story as strange as this. It involves a busker dressed as The Incredible Hulk, a famous music director and a naked executioner.

The scene opened yesterday in a street outside the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, central London, with Duncan Meadows performing his entertainment, this time dressed as a Roman centurion. Meadows, a regular busker, was covered in silver body paint, wearing a “skirt” and waving a plastic sword while standing on a box.

It was an act he has performed many times over the past four years, making Meadows one of the characters of the neighbourhood and a tourist attraction.

Tomorrow, however, the busker will turn star of the stage inside the opera house, which attracts world class directors and performers. Meadows, 35, will appear in a new production of Richard Strauss’s Salome, where he will take centre stage at the end as the executioner, chopping off the head of John the Baptist before handing it to Salome.

How did a busker capture the spotlight inside Covent Garden? The transformation began when Meadows, a body builder and former Mr Wales, was spotted in the piazza outside the opera house by David McVicar, one of the world’s best opera directors.

“I saw him outside and thought that he had just the right body for the part,” said McVicar. “But he also had the ability to move well, and, particularly importantly, to stand still, which is necessary for the role of the executioner as for much of the time he is stationary in the crowd.”

McVicar was coy about going up to Meadows in the street. “So I asked a colleague here at the Opera House to sound him out. Even so I actually wondered if that approach might have made Duncan think he was being picked up.”

Meadows said he might be interested in the role, but that he was due to fly to the West Coast of America: the winter weather there was more conducive to posing in a skirt with a plastic sword.

Chance intervened again when McVicar saw Meadows at a gym after he had returned from America.

“He was without his make-up this time,” said the opera director, who has worked at Glynde-bourne, the Salzburg Festival and with Scottish Opera as well as at Covent Garden. Again Meadows, who is 6ft 2in and weighs 16 stone, was sounded out about the role.

However, there was a possible snag. Though the executioner would be on stage for most of the opera dressed in a greatcoat, at the end he was to be naked while performing the decapitation of John.

“I had some doubts about this for about 30 seconds,” said Meadows, who had never been to an opera let alone appeared in one. “But then I thought ‘well, why not?’.”

Once he landed the part, he went to a couple of productions to get a feel for operatic style. Last Thursday he made his debut in the production’s opening night, which garnered good reviews. Meadows was delighted with the experience. “It was incredible,” he said.

McVicar defends both his unusual casting technique and his decision for Meadows to appear naked during the last part of Salome. “He just seemed to have the right physique, presence and look,” he said. “I also thought it was right for him to be naked because his body would show up better the blood from the head he has just cut off. Also there is the erotic side with Salome.”

However, it’s not entirely a rags-to-riches story for Meadows. On a good day as a centurion in the piazza he can make up to £400 – whereas his weekly fee inside the Royal Opera House is just £300.

So yesterday he had come down to earth and was putting on his centurion’s uniform again. A couple of women came up to him on his box in the afternoon.

“Weren’t you in Salome the other night?” they asked. Meadows just smiled.

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