NATZKE IN NAVY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 110, 11 May 1943, Page 4

NATZKE IN NAVY

DOMINION BASSO

ACCLAIMED IN CANADA

Oscar Natzke, the New Zealander who has won acclaim as one of the world's greatest bassos, is now a member of the Royal Canadian Navy. In what capacity he is serving is not known, but it is likely that as yet he is under training. News of his enlistment was received in Auckland in a letter from Montreal, dated March 12.

"I am now in the navy," he wrote, "and, strange as it may seem, I like it, too. Incidentally, I have always said I would join the navy."

The decision to take this step came to him while he was on his way to a place called Three Rivers, where he was scheduled to give a recital, and he stopped at Ottawa to interview the authorities. He was told he'would hear from them in 30 days. However, when he boarded the train for Montreal that night he was given a message to report at once. Reported For Duty "I arrived at Three Rivers," he goes on, "and gave my recital, which was one of the biggest successes of my career—the concert finished at 12.30 a.m. I got back to Toronto on the Monday, had my medical and inoculation, left for Ottawa on the Wednesday, and reported there, only to be told to leave right away for Montreal. Where I go from here as yet I don't know."

In this latest step Oscar Natzke adds yet another chapter to a life that has been as dramatic in quality as anyone could wish. Born on a New Zealand sheep run, he graduated to a blacksmith's shop in Auckland, where he developed a remarkably strong physique. Even in those days he sang. but. as he said in an interview, he "didn't know a crochet from a quaver." His mother sang, and his father played several instruments. A great-grandmother had been an opera singer of note in Russia. Galli-Curci heard Natzke sing and so did one of the examiners for Trinity College of Music, London, through whom a special scholarship was arranged by the college. Even-' tually the young New Zealander came under the tutelage of Albert Garcia, a noted teacher, whose grandfather had taught Jenny Lind. His training was of the severest. For 18 months the student sang one Mozart aria alone.

When finally he was presented to the public he achieved remarkable success and, at an epic moment in his career, was given an engagement at Covent Garden —at 26 years of age. He was thus the youngest basso ever to sing there. The great Jean de Reszke had not achieved that honour until he was 28 years of age. Remarkable Tribute His career since then has been highly .successful: There are few countries in the world where he has not sung, and everywhere he has been acclaimed. Recent reports from Canada where he had been on tour prior to entering the Royal

Canadian Navy, pay him the highest tributes. A Toronto critic, following an appearance of Natzke at a Promenade concert there, recorded, "Oscar Natzke is the only real basso ever heard at the 'Prom.' and one of the four greatest ever heard here." Another critic wrote of him: "The New Zealander's singing reminded of Chaliapin when he was still the great-voiced Chaliapin." At a concert at which he sang for the Third (Canadian) Victory Loan 10,000 people were turned away, and police had to assist to clear a passage for the New Zealander through an applauding crowd. Incidentally, Natzke told in an interview in Canada of a moment of triumph in his career which occurred in Montreal. He had been to hear the Don Cossacks and heard one singer who "sang low B-fiat. No music, but it was there." The next morning, at rehearsal, he tried—and got down to low-A with ease. There was a demand that he should repeat the exploit at his concert.that night. "I got down there," he told with a grin. "Not as well as in the morning, but I got down there. It was a long way down."

Natzke's old Auckland friends will be interested to know that he can still turn his hand to the smithy. The six-foot-two singer tried himself out at a Toronto blacksmith's shop. "I'd go back to it to-mor-row," he declared, "if the country thought it was my place in the war effort."