He’s in good company.
Opera star Simon O’Neill joins the likes of Taylor Swift and actor Barry Fitzgerald on the list of those who’ve accidentally damaged their ‘best in the world’ trophies.
O’Neill, who won the ‘best choral’ Grammy earlier this year for his live solo performance of Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, was asked to bring the music industry’s highest award to the Santa Fe Opera, when starring in its recent season of Tristan and Isolde.
He’d also promised to bring it to his performance at the Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall, on Thursday.
But, in Santa Fe, while holding the Grammy out for view, he dropped it.
The entire horn – the gold gramophone speaker, which is the trophy’s stand-out feature – snapped clean off the heavy gong.
“It was a nasty shock, and so embarrassing,” O’Neill says.
“I thought, ‘what on earth have I done?”’
Fortunately, friends in Santa Fe knew a trophy-maker, who used his metalurgy skills to weld the gramphone back on to the metal base.
While Swift dropped a Grammy on stage in 2010, and had to be found a replacement, Fitzgerald, in 1944, decapitated his ‘best supporting actor’ Oscar, made from plaster due to metal shortages at the time, which he received for Going My Way, while practising his golf swing.
O’Neill: “I’ve now got a specially-designed carry case, which means I can keep my promise to bring it to Arrowtown for the big night.
“It will be carefully packed around with socks, shirts and padding.”
His “meets all tastes” one-nighter in Arrowtown, organised by the Arrowtown Creative Arts Society (ACAS), has been squeezed into a short December break for the Kiwi star, described as the “Wagnerian tenor of his generation”, between a huge year of engagements on the European and American opera circuits.
Ashburton-raised, Arrowtown’s always held a special place in O’Neill’s heart, thanks to family holidays with his Feehly family relatives.
ACAS managed to snap him up for a one-off performance in 2020, after Covid lockdowns suddenly closed a Berlin season he’d been booked for.
While a world away from the Berlin Philharmonie concert hall, with capacity for 2440, O’Neill enjoyed the boutique aspect of the Athenaeum – with capacity for 250 – meaning the audience has a much more intimate experience, and the acoustics.
On Thursday, he’ll be supported by rising New Zealand soprano, Olivia Pike, of Dunedin.
Simon O’Neill in Concert, Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall, Thursday. Canapes from 5.30pm, concert from 6.30pm. ACAS members $100, general admission $120. Tickets from Arrowtown Pharmacy or Eventfinda
