Stage music legend on a hit-run visit

Karimloo joins Aussie soprano for one-night-only concert at The Star

IF you think you see one of the world’s biggest music theatre stars fly past you on a Harley Davidson motorcycle today, your eyesight isn’t failing.

There’s a good chance that buff bloke in the leather jacket is Broadway and West End stage musical master Ramin Karimloo, who will perform his first ever Australian concert in The Star Gold Coast’s theatre on tomorrow night.

A Tony Award nominee, Karimloo has played starring roles including Jean Valjean, Enjolras and Marius in Les Misérables and The Phantom and Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera.

Canada’s answer to our adored leading man Hugh Jackman, Karimloo has circled the globe and lived his dreams on some of the world’s greatest stages since he first saw The Phantom of the Opera

as a high school student.

He’s starred as Tom in Murder Ballad, Che in Evita at Vancouver Opera, Archibald Craven in The Secret Garden

at the Lincoln Centre and Prince of Broadway in Japan, played the role of Enjolras in the 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Misérables at London’s O2 Arena in 2010 and more recently, starred in Anastasia on Broadway to high acclaim.

Karimloo was famously hand-picked by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber to portray the title role in his sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies.

“He’s a gentleman, very intelligent and has a great sense of humour,” he said of Lloyd Webber.

“He can be collaborative as well and brings you into the process – an experience I got to know very well during Love Never Dies.”

Karimloo has teamed up with the leading lady of the Australian production of Love Never Dies star, homegrown soprano Anna O’Byrne – who won a Helpmann for her portrayal of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, directed by Julie Andrews – for an exclusive three-nights-only concert