CHANGED PLANS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 510, 1 April 1949, Page 25

CHANGED PLANS

3 More

Broadeasts by

Walter

Midgley

ECAUSE of a last-minute change in plans, Walter Midgley, the noted English tenor who is at present touring New (Zealand, will give a number of extra studio broadcasts during the early part of April. The first of these will be from 2YA at 8.0 p.m, this Thursday, March 31, when he will be heard in a classical recital. And at 9.33 p.m. "wis Sunday, April 3, he will sing a ballad programme from the studios of 1YA. During the coming week Walter Midgley will be heard in three further broadcast recitals from 1YA. At 9.30 p.m. on Monday, April 4, he will sing a programme of popular songs, at 8.37 p.m. on Wednesday, April 6, he will sing a group of classical numbers, and at 8.0 p.m. on Friday, April 8, he will give a second classical recital. In the following week he will-be heard from 2YZ Napier ‘in three evening recitals. These are timed for 7.43 p.m. on Monday, April 11, 8.15 p.m. on Wednesday, April 13, and 8.13 p.m. on Sunday, April 17. Walter Midgley, who is only 37, is one of the most outstanding of the younger group of English tenors who have risen into prominence since the war. As an operatic tenor he ranks in popular acclaim with Peter Pears, who has had the added advantage of creating the tenor roles in Benjamin Britten’s three new operas, Peter Grimes, The Rape of Lucretia, and Albert Herring. Walter Midgley started his career in the chorus of the Carl Rosa Opera Company, and after only two weeks, he says, he was taken out and began singing in principal roles. Since then he has sung with all the principal opera companies in England.

At the 1947 Edinburgh Festival he sang in the role of Macduff in Verdi’s opera Macbeth, which was brilliantly produced there by Professor Charles Ebert of the Glyndebourne Opera, The tole of Macbeth in this performance was sung by Francesco Valentino, but it was Midgley who stole the show, and it was subsequently remarked in The Scotsman that the first international lesson learnt from the Festival up to that time was that if Verdi had written Macbeth for a tenor of Midgley’s calibre, it might have been more successful as an opera. Great Heroic Role Walter Midgley also scored one of the most outstanding successes at Covent Garden since its re-opening after the war, when he sang the part of Prince Calaf in. Puccini’s Turandot. His singing in this performance firmly established him, in English eyes at any rate, as being in the Yront rank of the world’s heroic tenors. In recent years he has also been a constant performer for the BBC in their opera broadcasts. Several public concerts will be given by Walter Midgley during the latter part of April and early May, all but one of them being in the North Island. His schedule for these appearances as we go to press is as follows: April 20, concert in New Plymouth; April 21, concert in Wanganui; April 26, concert in Nelson; April 28, concert in Masterton; May 2, concert in Hutt City; and May 4, concert in Wellington. His accompanist for these performances will be Wainwright Morgan, and portions of the Nelson, Hutt and Wellington concerts will be broadcast by the NZBS.