Soprano Malvina Major sang Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the 1968 and 1969 Salzburg Festivals in Austria and attracted the interest of Covent Garden and Glyndebourne in England. However, she chose to live in her home country, where she built up a large and devoted audience.
IW note: Major established the Dame Malvina Major Foundation in 1991 to support education through awards and provide training for young New Zealanders in the performing arts.
From the 1990s soprano Margaret Medlyn managed to fulfil engagements with such companies as Covent Garden, the English National Opera and the Vienna State Opera from her home base in New Zealand.
Janetta McStay (1917–2012), born in Invercargill, was sought after in Australia and New Zealand as an accompanist and solo artist, performing concerti with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and other orchestras. She taught at the University of Auckland from 1963 until retirement.
Margaret Nielsen, who championed the piano works of Douglas Lilburn from the 1950s, was on the staff at Victoria University of Wellington for many years.
Erihapeti Rehu-Murchie was a Ngāi Tahu (or Kāi Tahu) leader and woman of mana, and a prominent activist in the fields of Māori welfare and health from the 1970s to the 1990s. She was a long-serving member and president of the Māori Women’s Welfare League, and an acclaimed researcher in the area of Māori women’s health. She also served on the Human Rights Commission and in a wide variety of other public positions. An accomplished actor, singer and orator, she also composed waiata and poetry.
Dutch pianist known for making ‘serious’ music fun for a generation of New Zealand children
Jewish cellist Marie Blaschke sought refuge in New Zealand from persecution, arriving in 1939. Vandewart made a considerable impact as a concert artist and taught at the University of Auckland’s School of Music for 15 years from 1961.
On 1 December 1971 the young Kiri Te Kanawa took the operatic world by storm when she made her debut as the Countess in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at Covent Garden.
Gillian Weir became renowned as an interpreter of the works of French composer Olivier Messiaen and, after an international performing career of nearly 50 years, gave a farewell recital at Westminster Cathedral in December 2012.
Dunedin-born mezzo-soprano Patricia Payne had a brilliant career from the early 1970s, singing on many of the world’s great stages – Barcelona, Covent Garden, Bayreuth (including Patrice Chéreau’s Ring cycle alongside Donald McIntyre), San Francisco, Geneva, and La Scala in Milan.