Samantha Womack and Paulo Szot to star in South Pacific tour

As previously announced, ex EasEnders actress Samantha Womack will star as Nellie Forbush in the tour of South Pacific which opens at the Barbican in August.

The production is the Lincoln Center's long-running revival and the baritone opera singer Paulo Szot is to come to the UK to reprise his role as Emile de Becque.   He won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance becoming the first Brazilian to receive such an honour.

Szot is a Brazilian of Polish descent who made his professional opera debut in a production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Municipal Theatre of São Paulo in 1997. Since then, he has performed with the New York City Opera, the Palm Beach Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, Opéra de Marseille, and Vlaamse Opera in operas including L'elisir d'amore, La Bohème, Don Giovanni, Cavalleria rusticana, I Pagliacci, Carmen, Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro and Maria Golovin. 

In March 2010 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Kovalyov in Dmitri Shostakovich's The Nose .