Radio: Dowd As Oedipus

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30636, 30 December 1964, Page 6

Radio: Dowd As Oedipus

One of the most important roles of the Australian tenor, Ronald Dowd, was the title role in Stravinsky’s operaoratorio “Oedipus Rex” at the British premiere in 1960.

Although Dowd referred to his association with this work in a television recital broadcast last Sunday, he neglected to mention that his interpretation was so highly regarded that he was asked to sing the role again in a concert performance in honour of the composer’s birthday, and he did not say he had taken part in a recording of the work. This recording will be broadcast by 3YC on Sunday evening, introduced by Dowd. The tenor recorded both the recital and introduction during his New Zealand tour earlier this year before illness prevented his appearance in Christchurch.

“Oedipus Rex” was written in 1927 and has become established overseas in the repertory of both the theatre for which it was written, and the concert hall. It is one of several operatic works based on the ancient Greek dramas of Sophocles about Oedipus, King of Thebes, who discovered that he had killed his father and married his mother. Stravinsky’s version is in Latin and based on the French text of Jean Cocteau —the translation, according to Stravinsky, removed it another step from the taint of vulgar reality—but a link is provided between the audience and the stage by the presence of a Narrator giving a spoken commentary in the language of the audience. Sir Ralph Richardson will be heard as the Narrator, Raimund Herincx (b) as Creon, Harold Blackburn (bs) as Tiresias, Patricia Johnson (c) as Pocasta, and the Royal Philharmonic is conducted by Colin Davis, who is regarded

as the leading British interpreter of this Stravinsky masterpiece.

Year In Retrospect YC link will devote the entire programme on Thursday evening to highlights from .the year’s broadcasts—drawn entirely from programmes recorded in New Zealand. Three orchestras will be heard—the N.Z.B.C. Concert Orchestra, the Japanese NHK Symphony which visited New Zealand during the year, and, of course, the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra. The latter will be heard eight times during the evening in nine works, under four conductors and with' four visiting soloists. The conductors are Juan Matteucci, Sir William Walton (in his Christchurch performance of “Belshazzar’s Feast”), Eduard Fischer and Clyde Roller. The visitors with the orchestra are the French baritone Gerard Souzay. the English pianist John Ogdon, the American soprano Ella Lee, and the Austrian pianist Ingrid Haebler. Several other visitors will also be heard, the Italian Trio di Trieste, the Czech Vlach Quartet, the English Deller Consort, the Greek pianist Gina Bachauer, and the CubanAmerican pianist Jorge Bolet. Boy-King’s Tomb

One of the richest modern archaeological diicoveries was the almost intact tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun who died more than 3300 years ago, found by Lord Carnarvon and Mr Howard Carter in 1922. Only this one tomb among more than 30 pharaohs buried in the Valley of Kings was unplundered. The treasures Included an inner coffin of solid gold which took four men to lift it, and four great wooden shrines plated with gold. The tale of the discovery and of Carter’s difficulties when Lord Carnarvon died shortly afterwards is described by some of the original party in a 8.8. C. programme to be heard from 3YA on Monday evening.