Opera offer to N.Z. singer

Press, 22 February 1977, Page 20

Opera offer to N.Z. singer

Christopher Doig, the Christchurch-Lorn singer who returned to New Zealand recently after gaining third place in the Hugo Wolf Lieder Contest, one of the top prizes in Europe for up-and-coming singers, is likely to return to Austria soon. He has been offered a contract with the Vienna State Opera, and is likely to accept it for a year while he makes up his mind whether to continue his career as a singer, or to return to schoolteaching. At present he is teaching, having returned to New Zealand this month after two years of study in Vienna on a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council grant, during which he completed the equivalent of a six-year course, for a master’s degree, and was one of two students who

passed out with first-class honours.

According to his mother, who lives in Christchurch, he is likely to continue his job at the Auckland Grammar School until August or September, then leave for Europe. While he is away, his wife and two children will stay with his parents in Christchurch.

Mrs Diog said her son has been offered contracts in Germany as well as in Austria, but was not likely to accept them. In one respect, Mr Doig is now a different singer from the Mobil Song Quest winner who left New Zealand several years ago; when he left New Zealand he was a bassbaritone, but in Austria he was reclassified as a lyric tenor, and this has greatly extended the number of roles in opera available to him.