Baritone Comes Home

New Zealand Listener, Volume 24, Issue 623, 8 June 1951, Page 6

Baritone Comes Home

ONALD MUNRO, 38-year-old Dunedin baritone, came back home a few weeks ago after 12 years abroad, and will shortly be heard in broadcasts from all the main centres-the first of them from 4YC next week. When The Listener saw him in Wellington on his way south, he had something to say about his experiences in broadcasting and on the concert stage since his Wigmore Hall recital in 1948. Among the highlights that Mr. Munro recalls from his last few years in England are parts in broadcast performances of A Village Romeo and Juliet, by Delius (this was later recorded), and, under Sir Thomas Beecham, Cherubini’s Les Deux Journées. Cherubini’s opera was sung in French, and Mr. Munro was the only non-French member of the cast in a major part-two years in France having made him familiar with the language. Other important broadcasts in? which he took part were two performances in the Third Programme

of La Vida Breve, by Falla, presentations of Schubert’s great song cycles, Dichterliebe and Liederkreis, and recitals of English and French songs. Not long before he left Britain Mr. Munro sang in the first complete broad(continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) cast performance of Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans, with the Boyd Neel Orchestra, and he also sang the part of Adonis in the tercentenary presentation of John Blow’s masque Venus and Adonis in the Great Hall of Hampton Court Palace. Mr. Munro paid a tribute to the early training he had in Dunedin from G. W. Johnstone, before going to London in 1939. In London he won a scholarship in open competition at the Royal College of Music, and two years later he won the Tagore Gold Medal, awarded each year to the most outstanding student. In the 58 years during which this award has been made to students of the college, many of whom are scholarship holders, it has been given only twice to a singer-first to Denis Dowling and two years later to Mr. Munro, both from Otago. When he left the college Mr. Munro joined the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company, of which Denis Dowling is now the principal baritone, and was with them for a year before accepting the baritone lead in Lilac Time, with which he toured for 10 months. Then, seeking further experience, he linked up with

the Old Vic Company, playing straight drama, an experience which he found very valuable. After the war Mr. Munro went to Paris and studied for two years with Pierre Bernac. Back in London he gave a series of Wigmore Hall recitals and regular broadcasts for all services of the BEC. Mr. Munro intends to stay in New Zealand. He considers that this country is at present better than any other in which to bring up a young family. His wife, Jean McCartney (a violinist in the Jacques String Orchestra) and their two sons will join him here later. New Zealanders who have been in Britain for some years have done well, Mr. Munro said. He mentioned Denis Dowling and Inia Te Wiata (in .Mr. Munro’s epinion the best bass voice in Britain), who is at Covent Garden. Alan Loveday, he thought, was among the best three violinists in Britain, and the same could be said of Colin Horsley as a pianist. Donald Munro will be heard from 4YC at 8.22 p.m. on Monday, June 11, 8.0 p.m. on Thursday, = 14, and 8.38 p.m. on Friday, June 15.