Photo: Simon Hoyle
One of Moody's favourite non-human singers. Photo: flickr/ Sid Mosdell
Howard Moody loves the call of the korimako/bellbird. The songbird's melody has even made it into one of his operas.
The composer and conductor is back in New Zealand as music director of this year's production of Opera in a Days Bay Garden: Bizet's The Pearl Fishers.
It's Moody's fourth stint as Days Bay music director, and he loves its setting against a backdrop of bush full of native birds, including his favourite, the korimako.
Photo: Simon Hoyle
You'll hear the korimako's tune in one of his operas, Push, which is about a Jewish boy who survives the Holocaust when his mother pushes him out of a train bound for a concentration camp.
This year's Opera in Days Bay will feature the human singing talents of Madison Nonoa, Zachary McCulloch, Kieran Rayner and Joshua Jamieson.
The brainchild of New Zealand singer Rhona Fraser, the productions have been a regular fixture at her Days Bay property since 2009.
Moody spoke with RNZ Concert ahead of this summer's production.
He says rehearsals are going well, although the wind sometimes plays havoc with the music scores.
As a musical bonus this year, following The Pearl Fishers, the cast will then join Moody in a concert performance of Handel's semi-cantata Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, a philosophical exploration of the merits of truth, beauty, pleasure and wisdom.
That's on at St Mary of the Angels church, Wellington, on Wednesday 18 February.
Composer and conductor Howard Moody. Photo: RNZ
