Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Show: Elizabeth Marvelly and the NZSO

This young lady, now 21, made her first appearance in Wanganui with Sir Howard and Dame Malvina's Knight with a Dame show 4 years ago, as one of the first promising young stars selected for their newly formed support program.
Given the finesse and control in her voice she's obviously attended to her lessons well, recently touring Europe as supporting artist to tenor Paul Potts.
The Wanganui Home Tour performance was the last of a series of 5 in the North Island, and a nice opportunity to see and hear the greater part of the NZSO as well.
Carl Doy arranged the music, (has probably assisted with both her CD's, also backed by the NZSO), and in a great show of versatility, conducted the orchestra. I've got both his piano and guitar by Candlelight CD's from way back.
The orchestra did a Phantom medley and The Final Countdown on their own and Elizabeth filled the rest of the program with a well-received selection of popular songs including, Over the Rainbow, Dont Dream its Over, Cohen's Hallelujah, How Great Thou Art, Amazing Grace, I Vow to Thee My Country.
And my favorites for the evening were The Judd's Love Can Build a Bridge, the Caccini Ave Maria, the Delibes Flower Duet, and Edith Piaf's La Vie en Rose.
There were a couple of maori numbers in the mix, her pronunciation was perfect, and the jazzing up by NZSO well done. She also handled the other languages very well, good french with La Vie en Rose.
I always judge shows or movies by how effective theyve been on my memory, with this one I bought both her CD's on the way out the door. They're still on carousel on my car CD player, and will be for some time yet.

Been a bit of a festive music week here in Wangas.
A couple of days prior was High School's annual show, this year, Guys and Dolls.
They pick quite adult shows to perform, and pull them off magnificently. A couple of years ago it was Blood Brothers.
All the leads were big roles, well executed. Not to take anything away from them, I thought the performance of Alice Crowley playing Miss Adelaide was outstanding.
The Fugue for Tinhorns is always a fun number, and the boys playing Rusty, Benny, and Nicely were excellent, and top comedy.
As with Blood Brothers, there's a bit of girlie stuff doing can-can style dance routines, you sort of wonder if its going to be raunchy or what, but choreographed so well and done so enthusiastically, I can only say it was a delight to watch.
In fact, at about 70 odd performers, again like with Blood Brothers, the stage management was supreme, the Opera House stage isnt all that big.
The High School roll's about 1700, and 150 turned up to audition for the 70 odd parts. Lot of talent there.
All the back-stage work is done by pupils too, good education.

And that left Amdram's Godspell running a week before, as a bit of a poor relation, but nonetheless another well executed Lynne Whiteside direction.

A top week of music for Wanganui.

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