SINGS ON EMPTY STOMACH

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31462, 31 August 1967, Page 2

SINGS ON EMPTY STOMACH

Starvation kept her in good voice for competitive singing but a full stomach restricted her breathing, said Mrs Ainslie Black, winner of the Southland Savings Bank aria contest at the Invercargill Competitions last week.

When she was singing in competitions she had a light

breakfast, and nothing else until her singing is over, she said.

Her aria win, worth £75, is her biggest success so far in her singing career, She won five firsts, two seconds and one third in the other classes. Mrs Black, who is a pupil of Miss Beryl Gough, is a member of the Operatic So* ciety and the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. She has suecessfully auditioned for the New Zealand Opera Company, but has not toured with it.

Next year she hopes to compete in aria contests in the North Island and in Melbourne. She was thrilled when she discovered that the judge of the contest in Invercargill, Miss Linda Phillips, was one of the judges in the Meb bourne “Sun aria contest, had accompanied Joan Sutherland, composed music and was a music critic for a Melbourne newspaper. Miss Phillips commented on her choice of aria, said Mrs Black. It was 16 pages long and took 10 minutes to sing and was considered an extremely difficult choice. "Miss Phillips said she had heard it sung only once before,” Mrs Black said, Mrs Black said keeping up

her voice required practice i and this had to be fitted in i with her housework and the requirements of her nine-yean i old son Brent, who, she hopes, I will also be a singer. i Every day she practices one , or two hours, and she also has a weekly lesson and one 1 or two practices with a pianist i each week. She likes to be i

alone in the house when she practises, although her "two beautiful eats” are allowed to listen if they want to, Mrs Black has been receiving singing tuition sinee she was seven. She also received early training in musie and ballet, but her other interests gradually took second place to her the same way that her housework did today, she said, with a laugh.