TWO REMARKABLE SINGERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 March 1941, Page 2

TWO REMARKABLE SINGERS

NATZKE-NEATE CONCERT. Rarely indeed does it happen that two singers like Oscar Natzke and Kenneth Neate appear on the concert platform together. No such combination of bass and tenor has been heard within living memory except that of Arthur Niddleton and Paul Althouse, of Hie New York Metropolitan, who visited this country nearly 20 years ago. In the course of their present tour, Messrs. Natzke and Neate have frequently been compared with the famous American pair, and in all cases the comparison has not been disparaging to the two younger singers, who are to give a concert here in the Opera House next Monday night. Oscar Natzke, who left New Zealand five years ago as an obscure student, is regarded in England today as the finest bass singer in the world. As he is still on the right side of thirty, his fame should become world-wide as soon as present conditions allow him to be heard in foreign countries. Kenneth Neate’s tenor voice has been claimed by Australian .critics as ‘the most important vocal discovery for a. generation.” The opportunity of hearing two such singers on one programme will not be neglected by local music-lovers. For good measure they have with them, in the person of Henri Penn, an accompanist and solo pianist whose playing is a recital in itself.