Phillip Rhodes | |
|---|---|
 In Hōhepa, 2012 | |
| Born | Flaxmere, Hastings District, New Zealand |
| Occupation | Opera singer |
Phillip Rhodes is a New Zealand-born baritone opera singer.
Phillip Rhodes | |
|---|---|
| In Hōhepa, 2012 | |
| Born | Flaxmere, Hastings District, New Zealand |
| Occupation | Opera singer |
Phillip Rhodes is a New Zealand-born baritone opera singer.
Rhodes was born in Hastings, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. He is of Māori descent, with a Pākehā mother and affiliating to the iwi Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Kahungunu on his father's side. [1] Rhodes was raised in poverty, in a state house, with an abusive alcoholic father who was frequently unemployed. [2] [3] At the age of nine his father died, and he and his five sisters were taken from his mother and put into foster care home named 'Wharekoa' in [Havelock North] from where, he attended Anderson park Primary then on to Havelock North Intermediate, before attending Havelock North High school. [2] After their initial placement, Rhodes and his sisters were fostered by Flaxmere couple Pam (nee. Smith) and Henare Ngaera O'Keefe. [4] The couple were community leaders who rehabilitated prison inmates and taken in over 200 foster children over 30 years; Henare O'Keefe was a Hastings councillor, and Pam O'Keefe was known as the "mother of Flaxmere". [4] [5]
In this more supportive family environment, Rhodes flourished. His love for music and performance was kindled while watching Henare O'Keefe singing and speak to enthralled audiences. [2] After finishing high school, Rhodes enrolled in an acting course at the Eastern Institute of Technology. He switched to the singing school, but left after a year to care for his younger sister. [2] He was a "singing barman" in Hastings when tenor Patrick Powers became a tutor at EIT; [6] with his encouragement, Rhodes re-enrolled and graduated in 2004 with a Diploma in Arts and Voice. [1] [2] After graduation, Powers offered him free private tuition in exchange for occasional farm labour. With the help of Powers, Rhodes began entering competitions, and in 2007 won the Lexus Song Quest. The next day Dame Kiri Te Kanawa phoned him and offered to help him begin a career overseas; she compared his calibre as a singer to herself and Inia Te Wiata. [2] [7] By 2016 he was an established international opera singer, based in Wales with his wife Jemma and two children and working with an opera company in Leeds. [2] In July 2014 and October 2016 he returned to Hawke's Bay to raise money for his foster parents' charities, the U-Turn Trust and Te Aranga Marae; in 2016 he performed with Patrick Powers for the first time in ten years. [2] [8]
Supported by the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation, Rhodes studied at the Auckland Opera Studio. [9] He studied in Wales at the Cardiff International Academy of Voice before joining the Royal Opera House to sing Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor . [6] In 2004 he was selected as a PwC Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist with New Zealand Opera. [10] In 2011–2012 he was a Young Artist/Fellow supported by the Dame Malvina Major Foundation. [11]
At the 2012 New Zealand Festival of the Arts Rhodes sang the title role in New Zealand Opera's world premiere of the Jenny McLeod opera Hōhepa. [9]
Rhodes made his house debut at Nederlandse Reisopera in 2018, singing the villain Scarpia in a modern staging of Puccini's Tosca ; he was praised for his dark voice and "wickedly raised eyebrow". [12] [13]
He first played Figaro in February 2020 with Opera North, in a revived 2015 production by Jo Davies of The Marriage of Figaro . [14] He was praised for his "considerable acting skills and dark voice". [15]
He made his debut with Scottish Opera singing the role of the Father in Hansel and Gretel . [16] The production, physically distanced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, was filmed on 19 December 2020. [17]
In November 2020 Rhodes was one of a group of New Zealand singers in London who recorded the concert Whānau: London Voices of Aotearoa, far from home at the Royal Albert Hall. [4] Rhodes' mother Pam O'Keefe had died on September 5, and he performed a song, "My Best Friend", his father had written for his mother. [4] Unable to attend the funeral because of COVID-19 restrictions, Rhodes performed the aria "Nessun dorma" remotely. [18] Rhodes returned to New Zealand in May 2021 to reunite with his adopted father. [19] That month he sang Don Pizarro in a concert staging of Beethoven's Fidelio with the Auckland Philharmonia. [20]
Rhodes was the winner of the 2005 New Zealand Aria Competition. [1] In 2008 he won second place at the International Montserrat Caballé Competition. [1]
Dame Kiri Jeanette Claire Te Kanawa,, is a New Zealand opera singer. She had a full lyric soprano voice, which has been described as "mellow yet vibrant, warm, ample and unforced". On 1 December 1971 she was recognised internationally when she appeared as the Countess in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House in London.
Ngāti Maniapoto is an iwi (tribe) based in the Waikato-Waitomo region of New Zealand's North Island. It is part of the Tainui confederation, the members of which trace their whakapapa (genealogy) back to people who arrived in New Zealand on the waka (canoe) Tainui. The 2018 New Zealand census reports show an estimated population of 45,930 people who affiliated with Maniapoto, making it the 9th biggest iwi in New Zealand.
Flaxmere is a township in the Hastings District and outlying suburb of Hastings City, in the Hawke's Bay Region of New Zealand's North Island. It consists of a series of cul-de-sacs, radiating from a main street.
Dame Malvina Lorraine Major is a New Zealand opera soprano.
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The Lexus Song Quest is a biennial opera singing competition, held in New Zealand since 1956. The competition is managed and presented by Tāwhiri, which also runs the New Zealand Festival of the Arts. Winners include the sopranos Dame Malvina Major and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, both of whom were trained by Dame Sister Mary Leo. Other winners include Phillip Rhodes, Jonathan Lemalu and Sol3 Mio's Amitai Pati.
St Mary's College is a year 7–13 integrated Catholic girls' high school situated at 11 New Street, Ponsonby, Auckland in New Zealand. It was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1850 and is the oldest existing school in central Auckland, and oldest secondary girls school in New Zealand.
Henare Tomoana was a prominent Māori leader and politician from the Hawke's Bay area in the North Island, New Zealand. He was of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Te Whatu-i-Apiti tribal lineage. In 1879 he was elected to the New Zealand Parliament for the Eastern Maori electorate, and in 1898 was appointed to the New Zealand Legislative Council. He was a convenor of Te Kotahitanga, the movement for an independent Māori Parliament.
New Zealand Opera is New Zealand's only full-time professional opera company, formed in 2000 from the merger of companies in Auckland and Wellington. New Zealand Opera is headquartered in Parnell, Auckland, stages several productions a year, runs educational programmes, and supports early-career opera singers with the Dame Malvina Major Foundation.
Ana James is a New Zealand-born operatic soprano who has appeared with The Royal Opera, the Glyndebourne touring ensemble, and Opera Holland Park as well as with opera companies in France and New Zealand.
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Hänsel und Gretel is a 107-minute studio album of Engelbert Humperdinck's 1893 opera of the same name, performed by Ileana Cotrubaș, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Christa Ludwig, Siegmund Nimsgern, Elisabeth Söderström, Frederica von Stade and Ruth Welting with the Children's Chorus of Cologne Opera and the Gürzenich Orchestra under the direction of Sir John Pritchard. It was released in 1979.
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