A CELEBRATION CONCERT OF SACRED MUSIC

The Bookman put on his classical music-loving hat last night to attend a divine (pardon the pun) concert at St.Patrick's Cathedral in Auckland city.

The soloist stars were New York soprano Angela Brown and London-based NZ tenor Simon O'Neill ably supported by Auckland-based singers Kate Spence, Morag Atchison, James Ioelu, Claire Filer and Cameron Barclay.

Musical accompaniment by a scaled-down but highly effective Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra under the impressive and energetic baton of Hamish McKeich.

They were all in fine form, Angela Brown electrifyingly so, and the full house of punters went away after the two hour plus concert well satisfied.

Some comments:

*It was perhaps stretching the defintion of sacred music somewhat to include a number of arias from opera but for my part I was very happy the organisers had done that because this gave our two international stars the chance to sing work with which they are really familiar and which they both presented with great skill.

These arias included two from Verdi's Il Trovatore, one stunning duet from Verdi's Aida, (Brown has recently conducted a second hugely successful season of Aiuda at The Met), the famous Easter hymn from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, and Wagner's Parsifal which O'Neill , who has performed this on both sides of the Atlantic, sang gloriously much to the audience's delight. You could sense he was just itching to be on the stage in a full preformance of this great opera.He has been signed to perfom the role at Bayreuth in 2011.

*Angela Brown's rendition of The Lord's Prayer was dazzling in its power and majesty.

*Angela Brown comes for a negro spiritual background so when she let loose with "He's got the whole world in his hands" I felt some concern for the Cathedral's new roof! What power she unleashed. The punters went ballistic as they did when O'Neill sang Franck's Panus Angelicus.

*A quirky finish to the evening when two pipers in full kit marched down the aisle playing Amazing Grace.

*What a great night and it seems the Cathedral Restoration Fund will benefit by a six figure sum. Congratulations to Frances Wilson, artistic director at The Auckland Opera Studio, and her colleagues for their planning and organisation.

*The concert is being repeated tomorrow night, Friday 6 June at 7.30pm. Phone St.Patrick's for tickets, I understand there are still some available.

And here is Amy Cameron's review on Metrolive.co.nz