The NZSO and Teddy Tahu Rhodes

The NZSO and Teddy Tahu Rhodes: "The audience was clearly swept away by him - and not just the women!"

NZSO Media Release
For Immediate Release

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra heralds in summer with two exhilarating programmes that will leave you feeling uplifted no matter what the weather brings!

What better way to celebrate the finale of the 2008 Season than with dynamic NZSO Music Director Pietari Inkinen. Inkinen returns to New Zealand to conduct The Pacific Blue Tour, with none other than NZ-born international superstar, bass-baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes.

'Most striking was Teddy Tahu Rhodes, making his Met debut as Ned Keene. This young New Zealand bass-baritone has generated a lot of buzz for his good looks, but it was his full, healthy singing that stole the show.'
Washington Post, March 2008

Returning home for his first ever national tour with the NZSO, Teddy Tahu Rhodes needs no introduction to New Zealand audiences. He has rapidly established himself as a star of the operatic world. He recently sang his first acclaimed Don Giovanni for Opera Australia, the world premiere of Rachel Portman's The Little Prince, Count Almaviva and Lescaut (Manon Lescaut) for Houston Grand Opera, Papageno for Welsh National Opera and Escamillo for Dallas Opera. Rhodes made his debut at the New York Met as Ned Keene in Peter Grimes in March 2008, and now comes direct to New Zealand from performing the title role of Billy Budd in Sante Fe and Sydney.

For the Pacific Blue Tour, Teddy Tahu Rhodes will sing arias by Puccini, Bizet, Handel, Mozart, Rossini and Bellini and the NZSO presents Richard Strauss' magnificent Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel, as well as Stravinsky's Petrouchka and David Farquhar's much-loved Ring Round the Moon Suite

'The audience was clearly swept away by him ¨C and not just the women!' The Australian

Music Director Pietari Inkinen will close the 2008 Season on a high, following a year of outstanding reviews:

'Pietari Inkinen¡­ and his New Zealanders play like a world-class ensemble. Inkinen and company give a knockout account of the pulsing, shimmering, irresistibly stirring Eighth Symphony' The Star-Ledger

'Superb playing and brilliant conducting' The Dominion Post

'After interval, Inkinen's youth and vigour made one imagine how fresh and startling Mahler's First Symphony must have seemed in 1889. He zoomed between dynamic extremes and relished the mercurial mood-shifts¡­' NZ Herald

THE PACIFIC BLUE TOUR

Series 1

PROGRAMME
VERDI La Forza del Destino Overture
ROSSINI Largo al factotum from The Barber of Seville
BELLINI Ah! per sempre io ti perdei from I Puritani
MOZART The Marriage of Figaro Overture
The Catalogue Aria from Don Giovanni
PUCCINI Questo amor, vergogna mia from Edgar
BIZET Toreador Song from Carmen
R STRAUSS Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel

PIETARI INKINEN Music Director
TEDDY TAHU RHODES Bass-Baritone

Dates and Venues
WELLINGTON Friday 24 October 6.30pm Michael Fowler Centre
HAMILTON Thursday 30 October 8pm Founders Theatre
AUCKLAND Friday 31 October 6.30pm Town Hall
INVERCARGILL Tuesday 4 November 8pm Civic Theatre Preconcert talk 7.15pm
DUNEDIN Wednesday 5 November 6.30pm Town Hall Preconcert talk 5.45pm
CHRISTCHURCH Thursday 6 November 6.30pm Town Hall Preconcert talk 5.45pm

In a 19th century final concert, opera rubs shoulders with tone poems from Bavaria. Verdi's heroine in La Forze del Destino, forced to choose between her father and lover, suffers a tragic fate, foreshadowed in the dramatic overture by the use of the destiny theme. Richard Strauss' Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel in turn graphically portray well known rakishness and a prankster's merry exploits. To complement the Verdi, the bass-baritone arias are in keeping with the drama of this programme.

Series 2

PROGRAMME
FARQUHAR Ring Round the Moon Suite
HANDEL The Trumpet Shall Sound from Messiah, Ombra mai f¨´ from Xerxes and Revenge, Timotheus cries from Alexander's Feast
MOZART Per questa bella mano, Non piu andrai
from The Marriage of Figaro and
Deh vieni alla finestra from Don Giovanni
STRAVINSKY Petrouchka (1947)

PIETARI INKINEN Music Director
TEDDY TAHU RHODES Bass-Baritone

Even without the ballet Stravinsky's puppet-man Petrouchka communicates the vivid colour, as well as the inherent cruelty, of life in 19th century Russia, the action-packed pages ensuring this to be one of the most scintillating scores from the early 20th century. David Farquhar's Ring Round the Moon Suite is one of the most popular works written by this eminent New Zealand composer.

Dates and Venues
AUCKLAND Saturday 1 November 8pm Town Hall Preconcert talk 7.15pm
WELLINGTON Saturday 8 November 8pm Michael Fowler Centre Preconcert talk 7.15pm

ENDS

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