NEW ZEALAND OPERA COMPANY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 939, 9 August 1957, Page 11

NEW ZEALAND OPERA COMPANY

Sir,-With reference to Sarah Campion’s article on the production of The Medium in Auckland recently, and Mr Gordon Dryland’s letter in connection therewith, with your permission I would like to clarify one point. It is not a case of Wellington versus Auckland in the matter of opera, The New Zealand Opera Company is not just a Wellington company. It is a professional "New Zealand" company in the true sense of the word, drawing its artists from various parts of the Dominion. For instance, for the Auckland Festival productions, the artists were selected from Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin. The Medium was indeed produced by a Wellingtonian, but the company’s very successful Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, was producer by John V. Trevor, until recently of Dunedin, while Menotti’s three-act music drama, The Consul, which will be staged in Wellington’s Opera House, will be in the hands of the New Zealand

-- ay, ee .. oe oa > « eo Tt in a? — Players’ producer, Richard Campion. Once again, for the cast, The Consul will include artists from Auckland, Wellington and the South Island, as well as a member of the Carl Rosa Opera Company, England, who is at present on holiday here. Since its inception three years ago, the company has toured widely throughout the country, and at the moment it is successfully touring Mobozart’s Bastien and Bastienne throughout the rural areas, The founder of the New Zealand Opera Company, Donald Munro, originally of Dunedin, returned to the Dominion in 1951, after having spent some 13 years abroad, and the time seems opportune to offer to Mr Munro our congratulations on the fine success he is making of New Zealand’s first profese sional opera company. OPERA LOVER (Wellington).