Opera’s Farmer

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31343, 13 April 1967, Page 18

Opera’s Farmer

Neale Patterson, a lead baritone in the New Zealand Opera Company’s production of Donizetti’s "L’Elisir d’Amore,” turned to opera from farming. For 10 years he worked on the land, managing a farm for his parents in Central Otago, but his ambition was to become a singer. “I raised fat lambs and made a success of it,” he said. “The place was carved out of the bush. We cut our own timber for a woolshed. It was pretty hard toil, but I loved it The trouble was I loved singing more and it gradually took over.” ALWAYS SINGING He sang' to his sheep, on the track and on the tractor. The day his tractor capsized down a slope and he escaped with bruises, he was singing. Friends asked him to sing at concerts, clubs began to engage him, and eventually he got lead roles in stage shows. “I would find myself getting up at 4 a.m., putting in 12 hours on, the farm, and then tearing off by car the 60 miles to Dunedin for a G. and S. show, coming back the same night, bunking by the gorse bushes at the side of the road for a brief sleep before the next day’s work.’ r The big break came when the New Zealand Opera Company offered him the role of Colline in a tour of “La Boheme.” “I decided to take the plunge," he said. “I hired a man to run the farm. The day before I left, I dipped 1000 ewes on my own—end then it was straight to rehearsals. FIRST TOUR Neale Patterson made good tn "La Boheme” and later toured in Britten’s "Albert Herring,” singing the comic role of the vicar, a tricky part

for a high baritone, yet earning critical praise. That decided it He sold the farm and entered a fulltime career as a singer. In August he went to Australia and went straight into a busy round of engagements on Sydney’s club entertainment circuit. Then he joined the Warringah Mall Tent Theatre which staged musicals “in the round.” He sang Foster Wilson in the hit production of “Annie Get Your Gun,” one of the mellow quartet men in "The Music Man,” and then in “Bye Bye Birdie.” In Sydney he also sang with the New South Wales Opera Company. While in New Zealand, Neale Patterson will sing Belcore in “L’Elisir d’Amore” and later tour with the opera company’s production of Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte,” playing Don Alfonso. In October he will return to the Sydney club circuit