Macao hails another songbird from N.Z.

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 13

Macao hails another songbird from N.Z.

PENNY CHAMBERS

talks with Rosemary Turnbull, a f.

Christchurch contralto, who went to Hong Kong for a ( ■ holiday and, instead, performed a labour of love. ;;

The packed audience rises to its feet and applauds Handel’s "Messiah” with huge enthusiasm. A babble of Chinese and Portuguese voices fills the Cathedral of Macao, as the singers leave the stage. In the room set aside for soloists, Rosemary Turnbull stands out amongst the sea of black heads — tall, blonde and white-skinned. She is immediately surrounded by people, nodding their heads, shaking her hand: “Photo photo, come photo with me.” They stand at her side and beam up at her as the cameras flash. They had only heard of one New Zealander, Kiri Te Kanawa; now here was another Taambowyee — Precious Person, they call her. Can New Zealand be full of beautiful singers? Weeks later, Rosemary Turnbull in her home at Redcliffs, explains how she, a Christchurch contralto, came to be singing “The Messiah” on Macao. “It was extraordinary luck, though I must admit I pushed myself a bit — you have to when you are a professional singer. I went to Hong Kong for Christmas and saw an advertisement for “The Messiah” which was to be sung by the Hong Kong Oratorio Society in the city of Shaatin.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I thought, so I contacted the chairman, a Mr Henry Yu, to make myself known. He . sounded very interested and suggested we met after the performance. “I set off, armed with my curriculum vitae, which I just happened to have taken on holiday with me,” she grins, “and attended the concert. From the start I could see that the contralto was ill, she was snuffling into a handkerchief and .her voice kept fading. "When I met Mr Yu afterwards, he seemed so impressed by my credentials, that I took the

bull by the horns and offered to stand by for the contralto for the next performance which was to be in Macao Cathedral — and two days later he offered me the job.” She pulls out a translation of some of the enthusiastic, if rather rhetorical reviews: “Hong Kong Christian Choir and soloists has won heaps of audiences praises ... resonance of the melodious and harmonious ‘Messiah’ and the assiduous audience blended into a pious whole.” “It was a marvellous experience,” says Rosemary, “and really quite different from singing in a concert here. “In New Zealand we usually have only one rehearsal with the choir and orchestra — sometimes not even that. But in Macao we had countless rehearsals, and they had sung it only the previous week. “After the choir had been sent home, the conductor got the soloists to sing all their arias; the soprano, the tenor, the bass, then at last me, by the end of the day I was worn out. But the standard of the Hong Kong Oratorio was high and the choir sang excellent English. The audience were so attentive and responsive — the ‘Messiah’ isn’t often performed in Hong Kong.” Christchurch-born, bred and educated, Rosemary Turnbull has always loved music and singing. She graduated from Canterbury University as a bachelor of music in 1970, and started work as a music specialist at Wellington Girls College. She had sung in several choirs by that time, but started receiving solo tuition in Wellington from Maxwell Fernie. In 1974 she was awarded a post-graduate fellowship by the Belgian Government and studied there under mezzo-contralto Lucienne Van Deyck at the Royal Conservatorium cf Music. But a year later, fate took its course and she left Belgium to return to New Zealand to marry a musician. The next five years saw many solo choral performances mainly in Auckland where she lived, then she had a short break from music, while she devoted time to her two-year-old son and baby daughter, and in 1985 moved

back to her native Christchurch. Until then, Rosemary had mainly sung oratorio, but her teachers in the 1980 s, Beatrice Webster and then Chris Doig, insisted her voice would develop and open up much more if she sang opera. “I resisted it strongly; I suppose I was scared, but now I totally agree. I remember talking to Joan Sutherland — oh dear, that’s namedropping isn’t it,” she laughs. “Well, she said how much more adventurous she found opera after oratorio, where you stand or sit still for hours and sing from a score. But in opera, you are in costume; you are living a part, pouring out emotion and expression, and that’s exciting.”

“So shortly before I came back here to Christchurch, I sang with Grant Dixon in the Auckland Proms and took the part of Marina, a Russian Princess in excerpts from Mussorgsky’s opera, ‘Boris Gudenov.’ John Hopkins was conducting and it was probably the most exciting thing I have ever done; working with those two was wonderful, and the music jusP about bowled me over.

“In the Coronation scene, the orchestra was pounding away gloriously, then suddenly paused. The bells, placed right up in the Gods, started ringing. The whole of the Auckland Town Hall was filled with the sound. It was breathtaking — it sent shivers up my spine. “But I still love singing choral works; oratorio may not be as dramatically adventurous as opera, but the music can be so beautiful, and many of the works very demanding. The worst thing for a soloist is those long periods when other soloists or the choir is singing, and when you at last get up to sing you have this ghastly feeling of panic that your voice may have ‘gone cold’ and that you might simply croak.”

During those long periods, Rosemary tries to bury herself in the music and concentrates on keeping very calm. When she is singing, she tends to look just above the heads of the audience or if in a church, at a statue or stained glass window. “But sometimes when I do look at the audience it is encouraging to see faces that are clearly enjoying the music. But individuals can sometimes feel awkward if you sing directly to them.” Recently divorced, Rosemary .Turnbull is currently working as an itinerant singing teacher, with the majority of her work being at Hagley High School.

“I do 20 hours a week at Hagley, and I enjoy it immensely. A lot of New Zealand schools encourage children to play musical instruments, but there is not enough emphasis on singing. As a result, singing in a school choir has become unusual, and an ‘uncool’ thing to do, and sometimes a choir peters out through lack of support, and so the vicious circle keeps turning — it’s terribly sad. “But at Hagley, students are encouraged to do their ‘own thing,’ and it is good to be teaching those who want to learn. You should hear the concerts we put on. True, the standard may not be as high as the National Youth Choir, and they can’t all read music, but they have got heaps of courage and they sing with great feeling. They put their hearts and souls into whatever they’re doing and there’s a lot of caring and sharing.”

She admits to being physically and inentally drained when she

comes home every afternoon, and then has to turn her attention to her two children. “They are two real little live wires, great fun but exhausting. My seven-year-old is in the “Sound of Music” at the Theatre Royal this month, as one of the Von Trapp daughters, so of course we have to practise together for that.” Not to be outdone by his mother and sister, nine-year-old Sam has just entered a competition to become television’s next “Milky Bar Kid.” Rosemary herself performs in several concerts a year; on April 22 she is appearing with the Jubilate Singers in Vivaldi’s “Magnificat” and Haydn’s "Heilige Mass,” and a week later with the Harmonic Choir in Handel’s “Israel in Egypt.”

And what of Hong Kong? "Well,” says Rosemary, “the Oratorio Society have invited me back to do the ‘Messiah’ again next year, this time with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. Of course I want to do it, but their fee doesn’t include the fare to Hong Kong and back, and I couldn’t possible afford it myself.” She has the experience, the guts and the determination; if she makes the trip, the people of Hong Kong will once again see their tall white-skinned Tambowyee perform.

Numerous

rehearsals

Concentration

on keeping calm

Hong Kong beckons again