Performers - Part 66

 Zachary Stains

Zachary Stains is an opera singer.  He is best known for starring in Ercole su’l Termodonte by Vivaldi at Italy's Spoleto Festival in 2006, in which he was almost naked, wearing a minimal costume that exposed his penis.

Ercole su’l Termodonte (Hercules in Thermadon) is about one of the legendary twelve labors of Hercules, in which the ancient Greek hero Hercules has to retrieve the sword of the Queen of the Amazons, a tribe of fierce female warriors.

The director, John Pascoe, was also the set designer.  His design for the set of the Greek camp, above, featured giant broken stone phalluses.  He was also the costume designer, responsible for Hercules' revealing lion-skin cape.

Above, a short excerpt where Hercules (Zachary Stains), after learning that the Greek ships have been burned, tells his men that they must now conquer the Amazons.  Note what his costume doesn't cover.

Later, at the beginning of Act III, Stains doffs his lion-skin cape and sings the aria above naked.

Here's a photo from that aria.  Zachary Stains' performance in this role was superb – not just his singing, which was well done, though Vivaldi's music may not appeal to modern tastes, but the fact that Stains had the body to pull off his appearance as a naked Greek hero.