Two international opera stars, Simon O’Neill and Orla Boylan, stopped in Ashburton this week, making the most of a reprieve from their hefty rehearsal schedules. Photos Susan SandysInternational opera star Simon O’Neill is aiming to put on his best performing voice when he stars in Tosca next week.

Ashburton is O’Neill’s home town and he visited with fellow international opera star Orla Boylan this week.

The pair play lead roles in New Zealand Opera’s Tosca, which will stage at the Theatre Royal in Christchurch on March 8, 10, 14 and 16.

O’Neill said the Tosca performance was particularly important to him, as he wanted to make it up to Mid Cantabrians after not being able to sing at a local fundraiser due to laryngitis last year.

“It was really upsetting not being able to sing for Ashburton people,” O’Neill said, referring to Night of the Southern Stars at the Ashburton Trust Event Centre.

Performing for a home audience was highly important to him.

“I get more nervous performing here in Ashburton or Christchurch than I do in New York or Milan,” he said.

And the distress had not stopped at Night of the Southern Stars, as his voice did not return for a whole month.

“I thought ‘it’s over’, I had nothing for one month.”

The illness had come on the back of a gruelling schedule including the Edinburgh International Festival and The Proms in London, and O’Neill reflected it had perhaps been his body telling him enough.

However, O’Neill is more than back into the swing of things again.

His last production was in New York City at the weekend, singing with the New York Philharmonic, and the weekend before he was in Sweden.

Based in Auckland, he is generally on a plane for 20 or so trips to England and America per year.

He travels business class and generally has a couple of glasses of champagne each flight.

Last weekend when travelling between Los Angeles and New York, he was talking to the “tall and gorgeous” Iman, former wife of the late David Bowie, as he happened to be sitting next to her.

As lucky as O’Neill was to be able to pick and choose roles and sing in wonderful places around the world, nothing quite beat returning home.

He enjoyed showing Boylan, from Ireland, around Mid Canterbury when they visited on Wednesday, after having a break in their rehearsal schedule in Christchurch.

The pair came across a New Zealand traffic jam in the high country – a thousand sheep being shephered down the road, indulged in some good Kiwi tucker such as steak pies and dinner at Simon’s family home.

Boylan and O’Neill are big Italian and German opera specialists, Boylan soprano and O’Neill tenor, and often star together in productions throughout the world.

The pair starred in the big Italian opera of Tosca when it was last staged by New Zealand Opera in 2015, and were looking forward to bringing it to the stage in Christchurch again.

By Susan Sandys © The Ashburton Guardian - 2 March 2018