Intimate Opera in New Zealand

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 917, 8 March 1957, Page 6

Intimate Opera in New Zealand

TO talk about New Zealand opera five ‘" years ago was like speaking of world peace-it did not exist. Yet today we have a flourishing opera company. It is a group without a permanent home, a group that assembles for each production or tour and then disperses, its musicians and conductor returning to the National Orchestra and its singers to towns all over New Zealand, where they carry on their teaching or everyday work, but it is alive and struggling, and presenting audiences with a new kind of entertainment-the chamber opera. The New Zealand Opera Company grew out of a production of Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, which was toured by Auckland’s C.A.S. in 1953. Encouraged by its success, Donald Munro-who had recently returned from England, where he had a high reputation in opera, light opera, and lieder singing, and even played straight drama with the Liverpool Old Vic Company-decided to experiment with chamber opera. During the next year or two he arranged productions of Menotti’s The Telephone and Wolf-Ferrari’s Susanna’s Secret. With the help of a group of friends an opera company gradually grew out of these early productions, until in December of last year the company had staged its sixth chamber opera in Wellington, with box-office sales six times greater than at its first production. The Listener recently talked to Donald Munro, and asked him about his plans for presenting opera this year. "We'll be touring widely during the year," he said, "going from Invercargill to Kaikoura, and down the West Coast. We also go to the Auckland Festival,

and will be giving the first production of Menotti’s The Consul in Wellington in August, as well as doing Amahl and The Impresario at Lower Hutt." "Does The Consul production mean you have a preference for Menotti?" we asked. "Not necessarily. Menotti’s operas suit us very well at present, but I would also like to do Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring, and The Turn of the Screw, as well as Berkeley’s Dinner Engagement. I would also very much like to get hold of some good comedies." "Have you ever thought of scaling down grand opera?"

"It could be done, but as an offshoot off our main policy, which is to concentrate on intimate opera. People can feel they’re seeing the real thing here. Intimate opera has not the tradition of grand opera, it’s absolutely new, therefore we feel we’re creating the tradition now." z "What about commissioning works from New Zealand composers?" "We'd like to, but at present this is out of the question, as the risks involved are in evefy way too great. In our present state we must still be very careful as a_ serious financial failure would be the end of.us. It is now absolutely essential for us to form a full-

time company and to do that we must have the money. In the early days our work was all done with the help of a few friends. We just had to make things ourselves, often out of sacking and suchlike. David Galbraith’s set for The Telephone was so simple and effective it reduced to a bundle of sticks you could put under your arm; yet when it was erected it became an abstract set of contemporary design. "Until we can employ people fulltime it has to remain a_ hobby, it’s difficult, for instance, to fit singers in with our plans. We also want to be able to use singers coming back from England and so give the Bursary system more point. We want as well to be able to attract some of the big names among New Zealand singers from overseas. So far we’ve had to train the singers ourselves, and it’s miraculous the way thy’ve risen to it. That, of course, is because we’ve had first-rate producers and a conductor of great operatic experience." Throughout its history opera, the most expensive of all the arts, has had to struggle to -keep alive. Even chamber opera involves a large number of people. In the production of Amahl, an opera which lasted just under an hour, Donald Munro told us that at least 50 people were actively involved in putting six people on the stage. High costs, however, are not deterring the company from planning to use its small resources as effectively as possible. "We must grow and keep growing," said Donald Munro. "A group such as ours can either go backward or forward. It is better to look where one is going rather than look back--we can’t stay children or adolescents all our lives. I have no doubt that we can produce the necessary talent in New Zealand."