Opera Role Offer

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31448, 15 August 1967, Page 10

Opera Role Offer

High on the engagement list of the Auckland soprano Kiri Te Kanawa in the next few weeks are talks with the New Zealand Opera Company. The company has offered Miss Te Kanawa the lead in a proposed production of “Carmen Jones,” to be directed by the American producer Ella Gerber. Miss Gerber directed “Porgy and Bess” for the company in 1965. But Miss Te Kanawa, who arrived home from London last week for a two-month holiday, is doubtful whether she will be able to accept the Carmen role. “It’s a very demanding role and I would need a lot of time to prepare for it,” she said. “But I wouldn’t be able to take five months off from my studies. The most the centre (the London Opera Centre) would let me take off would be 10 weeks.” Miss Te Kanawa is halfway through her two-year course at the centre. She will be free this time next year to accept engagements. Homesickness Her first year in London was reasonably successful, but Miss Te Kanawa said she could “kick herself” for allowing homesickness to distract her. A trip back to New Zealand last February to sing at the New Plymouth Festival of the Pines cured the homesickness and she has since settled down to strenuous study. Miss Te Kanawa was tempt-

ed to spend her English summer holiday on the Continent with fellow students at the centre, but was drawn home to Auckland by “Mum’s cooking and care”—and a reunion with her spaniel Whisky. History Made In the Wagner Festival at Bayreuth on July 30, the second act of “Parsifal” was applauded for the first time in the festival’s history. By long tradition the second act of “Parsifal” is never applauded because silence is considered more appropriate to its sacred character. On this night the audience, however, broke into spontaneous clapping.