Australian? Isn’t this a blog about New Zealand?
Well, bear with me a moment.
I had the good fortune to win a pair of (free!) tickets to go see the Australian Chamber Orchestra at Emory University’s Schwartz Center this past weekend. I was given a promotional flyer with the tickets and looking over the set list I noticed that they were having a special guest at the concert, Teddy Tahu Rhodes.
Now I’m not an opera aficionado, but according to the flyer Rhodes is the “operatic world’s rising star from New Zealand”. Pretty cool, huh? And he really was good. He’s been in plenty of productions throughout the world so clearly other people think he’s pretty good too. I ended up sitting in the fourth or fifth row, dead center. So I not only had a great view of the musicians, but also Rhodes when he came out to sing.
The music was lovely, both from the Orchestra alone and from Rhodes. He sang during two numbers. The first was a selection of children’s nursery rhymes called Songs Before Sleep by Richard Rodney Bennett. After the intermission, he came back out to sing a few songs in German from Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte. (See the full program here.) Not only did he do an amazing job singing but he also managed to convey the humor and beauty in the songs. It was a lovely concert.
So now I guess the question is, do New Zealand-related things happen to me because I am fated to visit there one day for the most amazing vacation ever? Or do I just see it because I want to? Me, I think I’ll believe the former.