Singer talks of future

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33541, 23 May 1974, Page 3

Singer talks of future

Although the bass, Noel Mangin, feels that New Zealand has insufficient musical life for him to continue his career here, he says that he would like to retire to the Marlborough Sounds, where he jjrew up.

“But that may not be for some time yet,’’ Mr Mangin said in Christchurch yesterday. “I’m 41 now, and am just entering into the moneymaking part of my career.”

“1 should be able to sing for another 20 years — that’s the luck of being a bass.” Mr Mangin is in Christchurch for four days to rehearse and perform Rossini's “Petite Messe Solennelle” with the Royal Christchurch Musical Society’s choir.

Born in Wellington and brought up in Blenheim, Mr Mangin trained under Ernest Drake in Dunedin and Auckland, and left New Zealand in 1960 for engagements in Australia and later in Paris, where he continued his studies for two years. In 1963 he joined the Sadlers Wells Company in London. He travelled with the company until 1967, when he was invited to join the Hamburg State Opera, to whom he is still contracted to work for seven months of each year.

Mr Mangin, now a resident of Hamburg, said that after 1976. when he would have been on a permanent contract with the company for 10 years, he hoped to be given a guest contract and would:

then be more free to return to New Zealand. “I don’t think I would come here to live unless I could have a small house in the Pelorus Sounds and live there as a fisherman — just me, and the fish and the sandflies.” he said Asked if he had found .it hard to win acceptance overseas, Mr Mangin said that his voice — a basso profundo — was fairly, rare and that, combined with his big range, had made things a lot easier for him.

"I think that I have sung in just about every opera house in the world,” he said.

“J have a repertoire of 86 roles, 38 of which I have performed in Hamburg, and I have come to be associated with the role of Osmin in Mozdrt’s “Seraglio,” and that has opened all sorts of doors to me.” .

( Mr Mangin will leave New ' Zealand next week after his first official visit home for i 14 years, to return to HamIburg by way of America. ( “1 would like to be able to go to Blenheim and visit my father’s grave and see the old home town, hut I just won’t have time for it,” Mr Mangin said. “I’ve hardly had time even to see my family.” As well as his appearance; with the Musical Society in the Town Hall on Saturday: evening, Mr Mangin has had several engagements in the I North Island with the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orches-I tra.