Performance Partners

Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir

with Vector Wellington Orchestra

conductor Karen Grylls

Wednesday 6 June, St Pauls’ Cathedral Wellington 7.30pm

The intrigue surrounding the composition of Mozart’s Requiem is almost as far-fetched as Peter Shaffer’s famous play, ‘Amadeus’. In reality, the Requiem was secretly commissioned by the wealthy nobleman, Count Franz von Walsegg, who intended to pass off the work as his own – hence the secrecy.

At the time of his death, Mozart was heavily in debt and his young widow Constanze set about securing the family’s future by completing the commission in order to be paid the fee.

Mozart’s pupil, the 21-year-old Franz Süssmayr, eventually took on the task and with the help of other composers added the Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei and the final section, Lux aeterna, based on Mozart’s own sketches.

In the last 200 years, there have been several attempts at alternative completions but it is the Süssmayr version that is the most familiar and the one used in these performances.

Royal New Zealand Ballet

The TOWER Season of Cinderella

2 August - 11 August at St James Theatre

Cinderella returns to Wellington stages in August, conducted by Marc Taddei.

Dazzling against the light and dark of Prokofiev’s powerful score, this ravishing interpretation of the timeless rags to riches romance is everything you could wish for in a ballet.  Choreographed by Christopher Hampson, this production features acclaimed New Zealand designer Tracy Grant Lord’s sumptuous costumes and lavish sets to draw you into a glittering fantasy world.

In her grief, the young Cinderella plants a rose at her mother’s graveside. When her father remarries, the future seems bleaker than ever. Her wicked stepmother is intent on pushing kind and beautiful Cinderella aside in favour of her two nasty step-sisters. The course of true love never did run smooth, but in this best loved of all fairy tales, Cinderella meets her prince.

The TelstraClear Season of Giselle

7-11 November, St James Theatre

Michael Lloyd conducts a new staging of this quintessential ballet, co-produced by Ethan Stiefel and Royal Ballet principal dancer Johan Kobborg. Gillian Murphy, RNZB Principal Guest Artist and star of the American Ballet Theatre, dances Giselle, one of the most dramatic roles in the classical ballet repertoire.

Disguise and revelation, love and jealousy combine in this tragic tale. A love story unfolds against the ghostly backdrop of a Rhineland forest haunted by the fearful presence of the “Wilis” – vengeful spirits of abandoned brides. The beautiful peasant girl, Giselle, falls for Albrecht who conceals his identity to win her. The discovery of her lover’s deception shatters Giselle’s innocence and causes her to die of a broken heart. Albrecht is thrown into the hands of the merciless Wilis, but Giselle cannot bear to watch him die and returns as a ghost to save him.

Giselle is the most dramatic and beautiful of ballets and the RNZB’s brand new production is a must-see in 2012.

NBR New Zealand Opera

HOHEPA

15, 17, 18 March, Wellington Opera House

Jenny McLeod’s groundbreaking new work Hohepa premieres at the New Zealand International Arts Festival in Wellington, accompanied by players from the VWO.  Acclaimed New Zealand director Sara Brodie presents the true story of the friendship between a Maori chief and a Pakeha settler during the New Zealand Wars. In a production of sweeping scale, we travel from the fertile earth of the Hutt Valley to the barren brutality of a penal colony on Maria Island, on a sacred journey to reunite Hohepa Te Umuroa with the soil of his homeland.

A powerful story and our finest operatic talent come together in this unique New Zealand opera. Conducted by Marc Taddei, this production features Phillip Rhodes in the title role, Jonathan Lemalu as Te Kumete, Deborah Wai Kapohe as Te Rai, Jenny Wollerman as Jane Mason and Martin Snell as Governor Grey.

RIGOLETTO

19, 22, 24, 26 May, St James Theatre

Opera doesn’t get more melodramatic than Rigoletto, Verdi’s heartbreaking tale of love and deception. Amid a flow of glorious melody, it features the celebrated aria “La donna é mobile”, one of the most recognisable tunes in all opera. Lindy Hume, whose 2007 Lucia di Lammermoor so thrilled its audiences, returns to New Zealand to direct this new production. The NBR New Zealand Opera’s Director of Music, Wyn Davies, conducts a stellar cast, including Warwick Fyfe in the title role, Emma Pearson as his daughter Gilda and Rafael Rojas as the cynical womaniser, the Duke of Mantua.

THE BARTERED BRIDE

13, 16, 18, 20 October, St James Theatre

Bedrich Smetana’s dream to establish a Czech national opera was realised with The Bartered Bride, his second opera. A comic look at Bohemian life, it’s a tale of true love prevailing despite the best efforts of a scheming marriage broker, a couple of social-climbing parents and a dancing bear. This Opera North production is sung in English and set in 1972 – four years after the Prague Spring. Oliver von Dohnanyi returns to conduct soprano Anna Leese as Marenka, bass Conal Coad as Kecal and current Dame Malvina Major Mina Foley Scholar Andrew Glover as Vasek.

Orpheus Choir

Vector Wellington Orchestra is pleased to announce two engagements scheduled for 2012 with The Orpheus Choir of Wellington. Full details of artists, times and ticket information will be available in the New Year.

Bernstein - Candide

28 July, Wellington Town Hall

Vector Wellington Orchestra is pleased to announce two engagements scheduled for 2012 with The Orpheus Choir of Wellington. Full details of artists, times and ticket information will be available in the New Year.

Family Christmas Concert

1 December, Wellington Town Hall

There’s no happier way to enjoy the lead-in to the festival season than a mid-afternoon family Christmas concert. John Rutter’s charming Brother Heinrich’s Christmas tells the story of a monk and his morose donkey as they go about their way on Christmas Eve. Favourite Christmas carols and songs are featured along with a good-old audience singalong. Grandparents, parents, friends and neighbours – bring your children for a lovely time with Orpheus Choir, a fabulous narrator, Vector Wellington Orchestra and Mark W Dorrell.

G & S Light Opera

Kapiti
Southward Theatre, Saturday 18 August, Matinee and evening

Wanganui
Royal Opera House, Saturday 25 August, Evening

Palmerston North
Regent on Broadway, Sunday 2 September, Matinee and evening

Wellington
Wellington Opera House, 8 to 15 September, Evenings, and15 September matinee

The Pirates of Penzance

Wellington G&S Light Opera presents its 2012 season of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, in a tour commencing in the Kapiti Coast, continuing through Palmerston North, and Wanganui, to close in Wellington with a week at the Opera House.

In Pirates, Gilbert lampoons the police, aristocracy (as pirates) and “upward nobility”, to close with a quaint tribute to his monarch, Queen Victoria, in this most farcical of his works, woven skilfully into memorable musical form by Sullivan.

Matthew Ross, Concertmaster of the Vector Wellington Orchestra, returns as Music Director to conduct the work, with orchestra principally comprising players associated with the VWO.

Director Gillian Jerome returns for this production and we look forward to another great season of G&S at their best. As critic Peter Mechen wrote of the latest WGSLO 2011 double bill of Trial by Jury and HMS Pinafore:

So, with talent enough among the performers to burn, the traditional double-bill was a great success, reminding one of a number of things – the genius of the work’s creators (too readily taken for granted), the renewability of great music (able to enchant at each hearing), the excitement of live performance (with attendant thrills and spills), and the stunning clarity of the Wellington Opera House’s stage acoustic (every word sung with good diction as clear as a bell – such a joy!). The G&S Society can, in my opinion, be proud of their ”latest” – moments in time well worth the shared enjoyment! Peter Mechen, Middle-C.org