Home visit by baritone

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34089, 28 February 1976, Page 13

Home visit by baritone

(From BRUCE MORRIS, London correspondent of "The Press

A New Zealand-born opera singer who has become an institution at Covent Garden and Sadler’s Wells is returning home next month to show his wife the country he left 41 years ago.

He is Denis Dowling, principal baritone and vocal consultant for the English National Opera, who left his father’s sheep farm in Ranfurly. Central Otago, after winning the Melbourne “Sun” Aria in 1934, and came to England.

His last visit to New Zealand was in 1945, when he was granted compassionate leave to return to see his parents. But Mr Dowling remains a New Zealander at heart. On March 1, with his English wife, Phyllis, he will arrive at Auckland for a six-week visit.

“I am looking forward to it tremendously,” he said. “It will be a total holiday, and we will move about at our leisure.” Much of the time will be spent with his two brothers and two sisters on Central

Otago sheep farms. He l wants to tramp on his fathers old farm. And he insists on showing off to his wife “the most beautiful country in the world, and one which my ancestors helped pioneer.” It will be a welcome and well-earned break for Mr Dowling, who at present is performing in Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavaiier,” the opera in which he made his British debut 37 years ago.