Random Play by Graham Reid

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Random Play: Sing like you’re winning

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  • Lyndon Hood,

    **125th** anniversary Otago capping show

    Not that old

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1115 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    I think the historical staying power of opera is more to do with its audience and patrons ... Europeans kings and queens, Masons, and polite, well educated billionnaires. That is, in earlier centuries orchetral music received the canonical status, funding and critical attention, while folk music just got on with it and looked after itself.

    Um, James, it might be worth reminding folks that The Magic Flute premiered in a suburban theatre in Vienna. I do think there's a certain amount of ahistorical inverse snobbery at work when it comes to opera, and I find it tiresome - even if it's largely a self-inflicted wound.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Deborah,

    I can honestly say i believe she [Kiri] is the bloated arrogant pompous rude condescending vile cow that you can well imagine she would be.

    Heavens, spinner - would you stop beating about the bush! Why don't you say what you really think about her?

    New Lynn • Since Nov 2006 • 1447 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    (PS. Sick of the blanket coverage of Trinny and Suzannah yet? That one needs some close self-scrutiny within media organisations, surely.)

    I think you'll find it's a result of a successful PR assault by Westfield's muscle. Westfield own most of the big malls, and are a significant advertiser, hence the press coverage (TVNZ blanket coverage of one of their 'properties' was always a given) (which is why I was surprised to also see them hyped on Campbell Live). I'm guessing now they've gone you'll hear a few "Skinny Trinny Was A Complete B1tch" stories come out.


    Speaking of which ... gotta love Spinner's post above! I also heard a piece of nasty gossip at the weekend about the Dame ... which I won't repeat here for legal reasons. But when I heard it I responded "But you told me that last time she was here!" to which my friend replied "that's because it's still happening!" Ooh Er

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    .. which I won't repeat here for legal reasons.

    I salute your discretion.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Jonty,

    <It seems to me emblematic of something worrying that a column acknowledging the lives and careers of interesting and often important people has been replaced by photos of champagne-holding celebs and posing civilians at some heavily sponsored function.>

    A salutary comment that sums up perfectly the tabloid rag that the Herald has become. Avoid it like the plague!

    Katikati • Since Mar 2007 • 102 posts Report Reply

  • Ben Austin,

    Allegedly someone in the UK recently described Hayley as the perfect example of Celtic womanhood but for the life of me I can't remember who.

    London • Since Nov 2006 • 1027 posts Report Reply

  • Stuart Coats,

    From the lofty heights of the opera world -- where doors are opened for you and diva behaviour (rudeness, self-obsession, demanding self-entitlement) is not only tolerated and accepted but actually admired -- it must be easy to look down on everyone else.

    I have to say something here, as someone who works for the NBR NZ Opera company, about the above statement. In my job I have the privilege of meeting and working with opera singers from New Zealand and around the world. The vast majority are wonderful people; down-to-earth professionals who get on with doing their job. They look down on no-one and do not not tolerate diva behaviour within their ranks. Yes, there is occassionally someone who acts childishly with ideas above their station, but I've also met doctors, lawyers, plumbers and journalists about who you could say the same.

    I would also take issue with the implication that classical musicians and those who love opera are not interested in any other type of music. That is simply not true. Classical musicians often have a wider range of music listening than pop musicians, many of whom I am sure know nothing about classical music.

    As to the "Kiri vs Hayley" debate; what are we debating here. Both of these women do what they do extremely well and because of that have managed to rise towards the tops of their chosen trees. If one doesn't like the music or the voice of the other why should we care? I love listening to Tom Waits, my girlfriend hates it. She didn't like Blackwatch at the Festival, her best friend loved it. Taste is objective and there's room for everything in Graham's broad church. Even opera.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 192 posts Report Reply

  • Eric Olthwaite,

    But still people are persuaded that opera is somehow "better" than popera. I don't know how people make a qualitative assessment of this: it is more complex, more demanding to perform and listen to, requires more attention and so on. But "better"?

    Yes, I'd say better. I could knock up a turd sandwich in about five minutes or spend all afternoon preparing a complex, demanding attention-sapping three course meal. Of course the meal is better.

    It's the same with Dame Kiri and Hayley. Kiri can sing fluently in German, Italian, French, Spanish, with power across her entire vocal range. Hayley is a nice girl with a "nice" voice, that's about it.

    Excusing her lack of quality and talent (and this bit is important) when compared with Dame Kiri by inventing another genre doesn't wash with me either. That's like saying "Oh, it's O.K. to call your girlfriend a bitch because it is Hip-Hop."

    Don't call your girlfriend a bitch.
    Don't eat turd sandwiches.
    Don't listen to Hayley :-)

    Auckland • Since May 2007 • 20 posts Report Reply

  • Deborah,

    I get hit by the reverse snobbery every now and then. I just don't do pop / rock / hip-hop / contemporary music. Not my scene. Sure, if I get taken to a gig, or I end up at one by chance, I usually thoroughly enjoy it, but given my choice, I'll pick the symphony or a string quartet every time. ('Though I do like jazz and blues too.) And if I was choosing between an evening of Kiri and and evening of Hayley, on-stage, not backstage, you understand, I would choose Kiri.

    But somehow, I get told that it's a moral failing to not know the name of the latest big thing band. What's with that?

    You go enjoy your stuff, I'll go enjoy mine, and that's all there is to it. And if Hayley makes much more money because most people prefer listening to her, then that's just fine too. You go for it, Hayley!

    New Lynn • Since Nov 2006 • 1447 posts Report Reply

  • Lyndon Hood,

    I feel I should hark back to some Harry Potter discussion from back in the day. Frustrating though Rowling is - due, if I can put it this way, to lack of quality rather than offesive badness - she does get people reading.

    Like a gateway drug, but - assuming you have a problem with drugs and not novels - in a good way.

    If your friends like Harry, don't get angry with them. Take it as a sign there are any number of real books they might enjoy.


    Incidentally, I was at the operatic (well '__ballet chanté__') Seven Deadly Sins at the festival the other week. Aside from a hugely emotional performance from Gun-Brit Barkman that made the irony of the thing all the more crushing (and I also appreciated the skill of inject the desperation of voice into full-power operatic singing).

    I was also deeply charmed by her apparent pleased, appreciative astonishment when we went wild at the end. Admittedly she may also have been taken aback by the way we were whooping and stamping rather than, say, standing, but if there wasn't humility there it was an even better performance than the one she sun.g

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1115 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    I didn't hear boo about this big tiff or whatever until it was covered on Mediawatch yesterday morning.

    Seriously... one singer having a go at another singer in what appears to be a bit of a stupid thing to say. How is this news?

    Britney is even more interesting than this, and that's not saying much.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    <blockquote>I would also take issue with the implication that classical musicians and those who love opera are not interested in any other type of music.</blockquote>

    Hum... I wonder what the members of the Kronos Quartet -- who I understand still occasionally perform their arrangement of 'Purple Haze' as an encore -- would have to say about that? If anything their discography seems perversely ecclectic -- from Philip Glass and John Adams through to collaborating with Bollywood playback singer (and iconic legend) Asha Bhosle to record the filmi music of her husband, R.D. Burman. I'm not so sure the lines between high and low have ever been quite as clear as some folks would like to think -- and not only in music.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Spinner,

    I have to say something here, as someone who works for the NBR NZ Opera company, about the above statement. In my job I have the privilege of meeting and working with opera singers from New Zealand and around the world. The vast majority are wonderful people; down-to-earth professionals who get on with doing their job. They look down on no-one and do not not tolerate diva behaviour within their ranks. Yes, there is occassionally someone who acts childishly with ideas above their station

    as someone who worked for operaNZ/auckland opera on numerous productions for several years in the 90's i can totally agree with the above statement......in fact only one american soprano came even close [nb: edited: just slightly too hard on the reputation for the publisher's comfort ... RB]

    another gem of her highnesses was witnessed at the "Bowl of Brooklands" in New Plymouth when, at sound check, she requested that the resident ducks in the pond in front of the stage were to be shot as they were interferring with her performance!!!!!....

    as i said she has a wonderfull voice....but unfortunately for me listening to her sing is like blasting down the German autobahns.....very pleasant experience but somewhat tempered by the knowledge in the back of ones mind is the fact that hitler built them

    Remmers • Since Jul 2007 • 24 posts Report Reply

  • dyan campbell,

    BTW, a friend of mine who works as a field audio engineer was working on a show at the Aotea Centre years ago and happened to be near Kiri while she was rehearsing. He found it distinctly uncomfortable -- she just made too much sound.

    This is the real difference between opera and popular song - of any form. It's like the difference between classical ballet and Fred 'N Ginger. One requires a lifetime of physical discipline and dedication and the other could be mastered by an amateur, with a few scrapes and bruises, to a reasonably competent facsimile. The other would simply be an impossibility, and even with two or three years of dedicated practice, if started in adulthood, the amateur attempting to dance would still look... really bad.

    The same is true with the two types of singing - and while I don't dispute the interviewer's perception (probably correct) of Dame K as kind of... peremptory, dismissive and rude, I kind of get what she is saying about the singing. They aren't in the same categories.

    The training required to sing professional opera, like Russell's friend who was too close to Dame K found - is very loud, and very, very hard to master, even if you're born with the raw instrument. As with classical ballet, it takes years of strenuous training, and an amateur could seriously injure themselves trying to copy what they do. You are not going to seriously injure yourself trying to do what any popular singer does.

    Which is not to say Dame K doesn't absolutely butcher a song like Summertime with it's over pronounced vowels and soaring volume, and why Janis Joplin's cigarettes and booze steeped croak of the same song is sooo much better and more powerful. It isn't all about volume, there are so many nuances in the music besides the size of the voice. A song like Summertime which is about slave life in the southern USA (isn't it?) so it sounds quite silly and affected when it's sung with impeccable enunciation and a powerbase of sound instead of a kind of langour.

    But the context mattered... I knew a hairdresser in Vancouver who was horrified to see himself quoted in the newspaper as saying (of Margaret Thatcher hairstyling, whilie she was attending a meeting in Vancouver) "I was the only hairdresser in Vancouver who could do it" which he and indeed said, but they cut off the part where he said "because mine is the only shop open past 7:00pm in the downtown area on a Tuesday". Which really changes the meaning of what he said. He was horrified partly because it made him sound like a boastful loser, but mainly because it made it sound like he was responsible for her horrible hairstyle, which he'd been under strict instructions not to alter, only to style.

    But I wasn't there at the interview, and I can imagine Dame K being quite... imperious. But there is a "collective mean streak" in the national character, to quote James Belich (in Paradise Reforged) and NZers do like to turn or someone and persecute them for their inability or unwillingness to conform to some particular style.

    One of the gossip magazines - No Idea some weekly - unearthed Dame K's birth mother (she was adopted) and got her to say she hated her as a baby and she had a particularly horrible cry which made it easy to give her up for adoption. Or something. I remember thinking that was a cruel and unsavory thing to publish, and how they induced the old woman to say such a thing. And I wondered why anyone would want to publish anything so sordid and sad-making.

    Anyhow, this reminds me of that. It is a particular drum this country's media likes too bang when someone successful comes home for a visit. It's like that headline that confronted Bic Runga when she came back to NZ - "BIC RUNGA SAYS NZ IS RACIST". Sheesh, welcome home.

    auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 595 posts Report Reply

  • Peter Darlington,

    another gem of her highnesses was witnessed at the "Bowl of Brooklands" in New Plymouth when, at sound check, she requested that the resident ducks in the pond in front of the stage were to be shot as they were interferring with her performance!!!!!....

    Now that's just funny. I'm liking Kiri more and more.

    Nelson • Since Nov 2006 • 949 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    It's like the difference between classical ballet and Fred 'N Ginger. One requires a lifetime of physical discipline and dedication and the other could be mastered by an amateur, with a few scrapes and bruises, to a reasonably competent facsimile.

    Please tell me you didn't just say that any old amateur hoofer can dance like my Fred if they put their minds to it. Because... I really disagree.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    One of the gossip magazines - No Idea some weekly

    "No Idea" is a great for a stupid gossip magazine. I vote they all get renamed to that.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Stuart Coats,

    another gem of her highnesses was witnessed at the "Bowl of Brooklands" in New Plymouth when, at sound check, she requested that the resident ducks in the pond in front of the stage were to be shot as they were interferring with her performance!!!!!....

    Almost as good as when I was part of the Enzso performance there, and people kept swimming across the lake to get to the stage to hug Dave Dobbyn, Neil Finn etc. They got pretty concerned as they were standing next to live electrical equipment being assailed by dripping wet drunks. They probably would have welcomed the ducks.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 192 posts Report Reply

  • dyan campbell,

    Please tell me you didn't just say that any old amateur hoofer can dance like my Fred if they put their minds to it. Because... I really disagree.

    If they devoted 2 or 2 years of full time training - 5 or 6 hours a day - they could approach a reasonable copy of the Fred 'N Ginger style. But even if you tried to do that with classical ballet, you would still look really, really bad. It is a discipline that you really have to be reared in from a very early age. It can't be copied by someone learning it in less than a decade. And you could find an actor who could pretend - adequately enough - to be Fred or Ginger, but you couldn't even train an athlete to pretend to be Margo Fonteyn or Misha Baryshnikov, it would take way too many years, and even a male couldn't start much past 11 or 12, and a female dancer would really have to start around 4 or 5 at the oldest, though I have heard of some Russian and Chinese dancers (female) starting as late 8 or 9 but that is unusual.

    The kind of singing required by professional opera singers can't be undertaken by amateurs, and can't be learned quickly enough to be mastered in adulthood, even if you give it a couple years. The physical requirements are in a different league. You can do some serious physical damage trying to make your voice do something it has not been trained to do.

    auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 595 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Almost as good as when I was part of the Enzso performance there, and people kept swimming across the lake to get to the stage to hug Dave Dobbyn, Neil Finn etc. They got pretty concerned as they were standing next to live electrical equipment being assailed by dripping wet drunks. They probably would have welcomed the ducks.

    Wasn't there a moral panic about people in the lake when British glam rockers the Sweet played there in the 70s? You'd have to be a certain age to remember that though ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Spinner,

    pretty much every gig that i have been involved in down at the "Bowl" involves a fair section of the crowd entering that guano and algae choked lake. About 30-40 punters staggered/waded across to be up to their waists, in what has to be the most literal definition of a mosh pit ever, for the REM gig there a couple of years back...even the linen jacketed 323i driving former yuppies at the Mark Knopfler gig the week b4 had a good contingent of waders! .....Im sure that if New Zealand was ever to manage to create our own strain of bird flu it will be via that cesspool....I pity the poor lifeguards from the local surfclubs who are contracted to go in and remove anyone getting into too much trouble.....theres been a few!!!

    Remmers • Since Jul 2007 • 24 posts Report Reply

  • Jackie Clark,

    But somehow, I get told that it's a moral failing to not know the name of the latest big thing band. What's with that?

    Sing it, sister. I have a dear friend, same age as me, who frequents the Kings Arms, and is right into all the latest rock music. I simply admire her for being able to withstand all that noise. A couple of years ago, I was at the NZ music awards and the Datsuns or D4 or one of those groups was playing. The seats were literally shaking with the decibel level. Highly uncomfortable, and not my thing at all. Like you say, Deborah, each to their own but don't judge people like us who don't "get" whatever new music is trendy etc. Just because a new group is the second coming doesn't mean I'm going to like them.

    Mt Eden, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 3136 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Sing it, sister. I have a dear friend, same age as me, who frequents the Kings Arms, and is right into all the latest rock music. I simply admire her for being able to withstand all that noise.

    There's noise and there's noise. You have to be able to feel it, but I get really pissed off when a gig is pointlessly screechy and loud these days. (Case in point: the Bird Nest Roys reunion -- not the band's fault.)

    But props to your friend. It gets harder and harder to get off the couch and go and hear the bands as one reaches a certain age ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Peter Darlington,

    Wasn't there a moral panic about people in the lake when British glam rockers the Sweet played there in the 70s? You'd have to be a certain age to remember that though ...

    Best concert lake story has to be Hawkwind with Bob Calvert, tripping off his nut in a large green frog suit at an outdoor concert in Scandanavia. Not being able to see properly he fell off stage into the lake at the front of the stage and nearly drowned. Lemmy was not a huge fan of Calvert so rather than help him out, he just stayed onstage and laughed himself silly at the sight of a large green drugged up frog flailing about in the water and slowly sinking.

    The full story is in Lemmy's autobiography 'White Line Fever'.

    Nelson • Since Nov 2006 • 949 posts Report Reply

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