FROM CINDER TRACK To COVENT GARDEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 509, 25 March 1949, Page 20

FROM CINDER TRACK To COVENT GARDEN

HE story of many leading members of the musical world is one of early struggle through financial difficulties, rebuffs and disappointments; others again have had their progress made easier by having moneyed and sympathetic families or friends. Both these groups have in common, however, a continuous career in music. But there is a third groupthat of those who turned to music after starting their adult lives in other completely unrelated callings.

New Zealand’s Oscar Natzka could perhaps be placed in this last category and so can the noted English dramatic tenor Walter Midgley, who jis at present giving concert recitals here under contract to the NZBS. In an interview

with The Listener on his arrival in Auckland Midgley said that some 15 or so years ago he had been a dirt track rider in Bramley, Sheffield. "We were pioneers," he said. "We laid our own track with ordinary cinders and converted our own road cycles to racing models. Of course, they were higher than the specially-built track cycles of to-day and we had to do more miles per hour to get into the skid on the corners than you do now." The singer was familiar with the names of New Zealanders who had gone to England for contests there, but said that he had left the track just before their first visit. About the same time as he was taking part in motorcycle racing, Midgley was also a professional Soccer footballer. He was concurrently~interested in music, but in instrumental rather than vocal music. _ After studying under Professor Joseph Lyset, of Sheffield, he joined the Carl Rosa Opera Company, and from then on his story is the usual one of the climb from small parts to leading roles. He has alsosung with the Sadler’s-Wells, Glyndebourne and Covent Garden Opera Companies, has taken part in many BBC opera programmes, and has given concert recitals throughout the British Isles. Amongst his many leading roles have been those of Calaf in Turandot, Rodolpho in La Boheme, Canio in Pagliacci, Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana, Manrico in I] Trovatore, and Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly. At the first Edinburgh Festival he played Macduff in Macbeth. The war was a serious setback to Midgley’s career, the outbreak preventing the fulfilment of two important contracts, one with the Covent Garden Company and the other for a tour of Italy. Midgley joined the Army and during most of the war was stationed in London with the Engineers. Strong hopes were expressed by Midgley that New Zealand would form its ‘own national operay-~-It-would "be-neces-

sary for the first year or two to import its principal singers, but after that it should be a New Zealand company and it should, he felt, undertake exchange tours with companies in England and other countries. "A New Zealand national opera company touring abroad will do more. to create friendly understanding than. the best politicians and diplomats can do," he added.