If it was a coup in 2020, the Arrowtown Creative Arts Society’s (ACAS) just doubled down.
Two years ago Simon O’Neill, known as the “best Wagnerian tenor of his generation”, was meant to have performed in Berlin.
Instead, on the night he should have taken the stage in the lead role in Tristan and Isolde at the Berlin Philharmonie concert hall – capacity 2440 – he stepped on to the, slightly smaller, stage at the Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall.
Capacity 290.
The Covid blessing happened after O’Neill got stuck in New Zealand and ACAS managed to lure him to Arrowtown, somewhat of his spiritual home – his mum was part of the Feehly family, and he used to holiday with Cuth Feehly, the brother of his “Pap”, Jack Feehly.
But the freshly-minted Grammy award winner’s managed to fit in a one-off performance here this December.
ACAS board member John Lapsley says the stars once again aligned to secure the world-renowned opera singer for the intimate concert.
“in recent months, he’s opened the new Tristan and Isolde at the Glyndebourne Festival [near London], then he did the BBC Proms, which of course is just huge … at the Royal Albert Hall, they fit 6000 people in there, with the TV and radio broadcasting it live to another five million.
“Then he’s come off that and done Leipzig, Munich, Paris, Santa Fe, and he’s in Sydney in November at the Opera House.
“He’s got to be back in London and Munich for the new year, but he had this fortnight at home before he goes away, so we’ve managed to get him for the one night.
“With Covid gone, he’s just had the most extraordinarily busy schedule, we just didn’t think he’d be available.”
If he was well-known in 2020, he’s now world-famous.
In April, O’Neill’s name was called among the likes of Lady Gaga, The Foo Fighters and Kanye West during the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
A double-nominee, for best choral performance and best engineered album, Classical, O’Neill took home the trophy for the former, as the solo tenor in Mahler’s Symphony No.8, a live recording he did with the Los Angelese Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
More likely performing to audiences in their thousands at the likes of the New York Met or Covent Garden, Lapsley says Arrowtowners don’t know how lucky they are.
“One of the really big things about getting him back to Arrowtown – it fits 290 people into a good concert hall.
“At the Royal Albert Hall, he’s in an audience with 6000 people, it’s 3000 when he’s at the New York Met, they’re huge auditoriums.
“We get this guy, with the same big voice, up close, pretty personal in a country hall of 300.
“You can be in London or New York or wherever, but you cannot get that sort of experience of hearing the really huge famous opera voice in a hall this size.”
It’ll also, again, be a more informal concert – while last time he performed Wagner, and a variety of other famous arias, he also gave a stirring rendition of Danny Boy, for example.
“He’ll do something like that again,” Lapsley says.
And it’s also expected he’ll be bringing another guest to perform with him – details are still to be revealed – as well as his Grammy.
Simon O’Neill, Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall, December 8. Ticket details to be announced soon
