Should older opera singers hang up their wigs?

Think of Rocky for opera lovers: this summer Jon Andrew, a former star international tenor, is coming out of retirement at 77 for one last shot at Otello.

If he makes it all the way through the title role of Giussepe Verdi’s adaptation of the Shakespeare tragedy Othello, he will become the oldest person to tackle one of the most demanding roles in the repertoire.

Plácido Domingo, 68, the great Otello of modern times, no longer performs the demanding role, while Giovanni Zenatello quit it in 1933 at 57 after more than 300 appearances as the Moor of Venice.

On the face of it Andrew is hopelessly underprepared. He has not sung a major solo part since he performed The Flying Dutchman in Buenos Aires in 1982 and he last tackled Otello in Munich in 1979. But his secret weapon is a ferocious commitment to fitness that would shame singers half his age.

Andrew looks at gym equipment as Pavarotti once looked at dinner and his fitness regime has kept him at his peak singing weight of just under 14 stone.

“I’m willing to arm-wrestle anybody,” he said last night. “I’ve always rather disliked the way that opera singers are thought to be tubby and soft, so I train with weights in the gym four days a week, swim every day and play 18 holes of golf once a week.

“My whole idea of opera has always been very, very physical and I’m pretty strong still. I can lift 125kg [almost 20st], which is more than most people.”

Andrew came to Britain from New Zealand, where he had been a cycling champion, in 1962. He sang as a principal with Sadler’s Wells Opera before moving to Germany in 1968 and forging an international career as a specialist in the Wagnerian and Verdian repertoire. It took him to the great opera houses of the world, from Covent Garden to La Scala in Milan. He performed with the finest conductors of the day, including Sir Georg Solti, Sir Colin Davis, James Levine and Karl Böhm and counted Pavarotti and Domingo among his friends. Brute strength was undoubtedly part of his appeal to audiences.

In one production of Carmen in South Africa he broke his male co-star’s thumb in an overexuberant fight scene and, surprised reviewers noted, “on several occasions also sent Carmen skittling across the stage”.

Andrew now lives in Bournemouth, where he keeps in good voice through his work as a singing coach. His pupils have included the award-winning soprano Kate Royal and David Habbin, a tenor in the chart-topping opera band Amici Forever.

Twice a year he sings with his pupils at charity concerts in Bournemouth and it was there that he was heard by David Norman, artistic director of the touring company Candlelight Opera.

“Jon sang arias by Wagner, Saint-Saëns and Verdi — including the death scene from Otello— and I was absolutely amazed at the power of his voice and the emotional force of his performance,” Mr Norman said. “I asked him if there was a role he would like to sing again and he immediately said, ‘Otello’.”

Andrew will get his chance in a fully costumed production with an orchestra at the Royal Bath Hotel in Bournemouth on June 14.

The challenge has stoked the competitive spirit that drove his career and more recently has seen him cycle from Land’s End to John O’Groats for charity in 2007.

“It’s got to be physically and vocally up to international standard, otherwise why bother?” he said. “There’s no point in me swanning around saying I’ve sung this all over the world in three languages.

He said: “I’ve got to be in better condition than if I was singing in Covent Garden and my memory has to be able to do it without the prompt you would get there. I want to perform like a man of 40, not a man of 77. If it’s not right up there I will disappear and go to Siberia.”

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