IT is probably the most prestigious, and the glitziest, night in opera - the opening of the season at Milan's La Scala.

And this year on December 7, it was Herefordshire's favourite tenor, Ian Storey, who took centre stage, playing Tristan in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde to a worldwide audience of more than two million.

"It is the social event of the calendar in Milan," he says. "And the most important opening night in Europe."

The performance was attended by the president of Italy, five heads of state and countless members of the glitterati, a total audience in La Scala of 2,200.

That number was multiplied by a thousand with simultaneous broadcasts all over Italy, France and Germany, with screenings of the event in cinema chains and theatres.

As he was leaving Herefordshire for Milan earlier in the year to prepare for the role, nerves were the last thing on Ian's mind, and he has worked up to nine hours a day learning one of the biggest parts in opera as well as doing hours more in the gym to get in physical shape for playing Tristan.

"I got nervous on the morning of the opening night," he admits. "But then I reasoned that I had done all the work. I have got to the point where I can do this'," I thought.

"As the opera opens I am standing on stage reading a book and I did feel a tremor in my hands for a minute. I gave myself a talking-to and after about three or four sentences I realised I wasn't nervous at all," he recalls.

"Though I did have to stop myself thinking that there were two million people watching."

Ian won the role of Tristan after what he described as "the shortest audition in history", with Daniel Barenboim almost immediately declaring that he had found his Tristan - and Ian was soon on his way to Milan to study a part he had never sung before and didn't know at all, coached by La Scala's head of music, James Vaughan - "He is now my coach and will be my coach until the day I stop singing".

Relationships have been key to Ian's success, which has seen his diary filled until at least 2013, with offers coming in for engagements into 2015. "But I've told them to ring me back in a couple of years," he says.

The working relationships he has developed with conductor Daniel Barenboim, director Patrice Chereau, James Vaughan and Waltraud Meier, his Isolde, have been one of the great joys of the project.

"It is great working with people of this calibre, just incredible. It's been tough, but hugely rewarding."

With the production having attracted "incredible reviews", it has already been announced that it will be revived in Milan in 2009.

The other relationships that have been key to Ian being able to concentrate exclusively on the biggest event of his career have been those with his family.

"I have only seen my wife for four days in the last seven months," he says. "And then when she came out for the opening night, she had a bad cold and had to sleep in another room."

With a performance on Sunday and another on December 28, Ian will only manage to get home for a day and two nights at Christmas, something he's looking forward to: "I love being at home - Milan is not the most beautiful city on the planet."