First Peak
ECAUSE of the complexity of their work, and the enormous difficulties of assembling all the ingredients, the productions of the New Zealand Opera Company may be considered the most important artistic achievements in New Zealand over the last few years. Mr Munro began modestly offering smallscale productions of little operas for tiny casts, and like an old trouper, he took them on the most arduous provincial tours. The later seasons were more ambitious, and with James Robertson to direct the music, the productions became at one bound, fully professional. With Menotti’s The Consul, the Company has given us its first full-length opera, staged, as is right and proper, in the Wellington Opera House, and the scale of the achievement, in comparison with what the Company gave us only three years ago, is quite remarkable. James Robertson’s contribution to the occasion, and in fact, to the Company generally, can hardly be over-valued. Few London or New York theatre orchestras would play the tricky score with the precision of the finely disciplined team Mr Robertson drew from the National Orchestra, and both he and Mr Munro have an unerring instinct for the right voice for the right part. It remains to say that the broadcast version of The Consul was shattering; the intensity of the work and the richness and fidelity of this performance was overwhelming, even unseen. The diction of all the singers was exemplary, and in a splendid cast, Vincente Major and Mona Ross sang ‘with wonderful verve, James Robertson revealed all the vivid angularities and occasional sweetnesses of the highly theatrical store. Menotti, in this opera, combines a Puccini lushness with a gritty salad assembled from various quarters and the result, though never great music; is always dramatic (continued on next page)
and full of theatre. My salutations go to all, but in particular, to Mr Robertson and Mr Munro, for making it possible for us to hear modern opera in this
full, rich way.
B.E.G.
M.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 942, 30 August 1957, Page 30
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330First Peak New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 942, 30 August 1957, Page 30
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