May Settle In Chch.

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30839, 26 August 1965, Page 2

May Settle In Chch.

Two principals of the New Zealand Opera Company, Graeme Gorton and his wife (Angela Shaw) are seriously considering settling in Christchurch to teach singing. They have gone as far as inquiring about houses, old-type homes with a big room suitable for a studio. “We feel Christchurch would be a better place than Auckland, where we now live, fot bringing up our son and sending him to school,” Angela Shaw said, combing the' blond hair of Christopher, aged 2). But before they begin teaching they hope to return to England to study further with Florence Norberg in London. “We want to do a refresher i course.” Mr Gorton said. “We! X

iwere both studying with her iwhen we were married in {London in 1962." NOT TOGETHER For the first time in five operas Graeme Gorton and Angela Shaw are singing in opposite programmes on this tour of the New Zealand Company. Miss Shaw is a principal in “Don Giovanni,” which opens at the Theatre Royal this evening, and her husband is in “11 Trovatore.” “We like working together, but now that we have Christopher it is easier when we are playing in different productions. We can take turns at baby-sitting," she said. I “It also means 1 can occasionally see Angela in a performance from the audience,” her husband put in. Miss Shaw feels she is singing much better since the birth of her son. “1 think it has a great deal to do with being more settled myself. He is an added in-

centive to work, even though I have to consider him all the time,” she said.

| Christopher, however, did not appreciate his mother’s working—or at least rehearsing—at first. He felt a bit left out. “Now I sit him on the piano stool and let him join in a few of our exercises, if need be. It is somewhat distracting, but it does inciude him,” she said. Since they were last in Christchurch in “Rigoletto” early last year, Graeme and Angela Gorton went to Sydney to sing in the Britten “War Requiem” and while there took part in a television production of the opera “1 Pagliacci” for the A.B.C. After their return to New Zealand they did a proms concert tour with the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra and took part in a recent television programme singing operatic duets and arias with the orchestra.