Dame Malvina’s message to young performers: ‘Family and success can go together’
Friday, 17 November 2023
Dame Malvina Major has a lesson from her life story that she wants to inspire young singers and musicians with:
Success as an artist and having a family don’t need to be two entirely separate things.
The country’s foremost opera soprano has just gifted her personal archives to Waikato University.
It’s a collection that documents her entire career - from her origins performing country and western music with her family; to her early training in Ngāruawāhia; to performing solo for royalty on stages in London’s Covent Garden and at the Pyramids in Egypt; to the establishment of the Dame Malvina Major Foundation.
But her story is not just a straightforward chronicle of successes in song.
photo by Jeff Busby.'/>There’s a deeper narrative about the belittling beliefs of the music establishment that, to her surprise, she found herself battling after she became a mother.
“If there’s one message that I’d like to give to younger performers, it is that you can have a life, and have a successful life in opera at the same time.
“Students and particularly women, struggle now as they try to balance their careers and having families. It happened to me when I first went to London and had my son.”
Major was studying at the London Opera School when her son was born. Her then-funder stopped paying her when her son was born, assuming her studies were over.
Au contraire.
“The fact I had a baby was of no consequence to my studies.”
She went on to have two more children and launch an international solo opera career.
“I did have a break in between my son and two daughters, where I returned to New Zealand, but I was called back to London 15 years later on the strength of how I established myself in those early days and my early career.
“It can be a hard life on stage. Having children was really frowned upon … I’d love to talk to some of those people now.”
Part of the archive is about to go on display as an exhibition titled I Did it My Way, at the university’s Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts.
Launched at an event on Friday night, the exhibition will open to the public from Monday until March 8.
Her close association with the University over many years, including the recent establishment of Te Pae Kōkako - The Aotearoa New Zealand Opera Studio, meant the University was the obvious place to gift the archive, she said.
The archive contains materials such as adjudicator notes from singing exams and competitions, correspondence about performances, video and audio, and notes from well-wishers around the world.
Personal notes are also jotted by Major herself on programmes or posters, noting what gown she was wearing, or who she would be performing with.
The title comes from the song made famous by crooner Frank Sinatra.
“He was a bit of a rogue, but I like the way he performed that song.
“There’s another wonderful song I have used as inspiration all my life, which was performed by Harry Secombe, called If I Can Help Somebody.
“Really, that’s become my goal in life.“
Since 1991 when the foundation was founded, Major has assisted hundreds of young musicians from around New Zealand to achieve their goals.
“Prince Charles asked me where the conservatorium of music was in New Zealand, where the amazing New Zealand artists were trained. I told him there was not one.
“It was then my ambition to get one started.
“[Former Waikato University vice chancellor] Bryan Gould wanted me to start teaching back then, just before he retired. Roy Crawford, who took, over employed me in 2012.”
With the backing of industrialist-turned-arts benefactor Sir William Gallagher and his wife Lady Judi, along with the guidance of the university’s chair of opera Madeleine Pierard, she got Te Pae Kōkako “off the ground“.
The conservatorium accepted its first six students at the start of this year. Major’s foundation provides the financing for two of the students’ scholarships, while the others are privately funded.
“That will be important news for the King.”
“My ambition is to see it grow to include orchestral instruments, theatre people … and dancers.
“What a legacy that would be.”