New Zealand Listener – August 03, 2019

72 LISTENER AUGUST 3 2019

THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT

The Best of the Week

SUNDAY AUGUST 4

Opera on Sunday (RNZ Concert,

6.00pm). There was much con-

sternation about the changes

wrought by director Stefan

Herheim to Tchaikovsky’s The

Queen of Spades at the Royal

Opera earlier this year. It was a

lavish production, but Herheim

places the composer

himself on stage

in the form of

Prince Yelet-

sky (Vladimir

Stoyanov).

“Herheim’s

approach is so

all-absorbing

that Tchaiko-

vsky’s characters are

turned into ciphers,” said the

Guardian, which was also not

impressed with Eva-Maria

Westbroek and Aleksandrs

Antoņenko as the leads,

Liza and Gherman. As

the Countess,

74-year-old

mezzo-soprano

Felicity Palmer,

in what may be

her final role,

was “mes-

merising”,

however, and

Stoyanov’s

perfor-

mance of

the ravish-

ing aria Ya

vas lyublyu is a stand-out. As

a backgrounder, in Saturday’s

Appointment (7.00pm), Elric

Hooper and Des Wilson are

looking at gambling as a

theatrical device in musicals

and operas.

MONDAY AUGUST 5

Music Alive (RNZ Concert,

8.00pm). The Proms

are here! The 125th

season of the

greatest classical

music festival in

the world features

more than 150

events over eight

weeks. If you lived

in London. Here, we

might enjoy the First Night

of the Proms in which Karina

Canellakis conducts Janáček’s

monumental Glagolitic Mass,

Dvořák’s fairy-tale tone poem

The Golden Spinning Wheel,

and a new BBC commission

from Canadian composer

Zosha Di Castri, Long Is the

Journey – Short Is the Memory,

which marks the 50th

anniversary of the

Moon landing.

Check our listings

for Prom No 2:

Bohemian Rhapsody

on Wednesday

(8.00pm); No 9:

Strauss, Brahms &

Boström on Thurs-

day (noon); and No

6: The Rite of Spring

on Friday (8.00pm).

by FIONA RAE

Send comments, queries or complaints about radio or tele vision

to: [email protected], or Talkback, NZ Listener, Private Bag

92512, Wellesley St, Auckland 1141.

RECALLING THE RADIO DOCTOR

I am doing a PhD on Dr HB

(Harold Bertram) Turbott,

who, from the 1940s to the

80s, wrote and broadcast

the Radio Doctor on Radio

New Zealand’s National

Programme. The programme

was also published in the

Listener as a column.

As part of my research,

I have been looking at the

public reception for and pop-

ular memories of the Radio

Doctor. I am keen to hear

from people who remember

any aspect of Turbott’s work

and obtain their recollec-

tions and general impressions

of the Radio Doctor and his

public health messages.

Given that his Listener

column ran for almost

40 years, readers may still

remember this or his radio

broadcasts or books. I would

welcome anyone with recol-

lections of the Radio Doctor

contacting me at maccl396@

student.otago.ac.nz.

Claire Macindoe

University of Otago

THERE’S A CATCH

It was appropriate that

Catch-22 (TVNZ 1, available

OnDemand) was screening at

the same time as the Cricket

World Cup. Both were full of

catches and irony.

A video replay shows a

clear stumping, but some

strange logic prevents the

umpire from giving it out.

When a fielder’s throw is

impeded by a batsman, the

batsman by an unwritten rule

won’t take unfair advantage

by “stealing” a run, but if

the throw goes over the

boundary, the batsman is

given four runs. And a team

that gets the same number

of runs loses because it got

fewer boundaries. Luckily,

our admiration for the Black

Caps has increased as a result.

And cricket was undoubtedly

the winner.

Nozz Fletcher

(Picton)

PERFORMANCE ANXIETY

Contrary to the assertion

(Radio, July 20) that Wel-

lington’s Orpheus Choir

gave the first New Zealand

performance of the Duruflé

Requiem in 2018, there have

been a number of previous

performances, including

the Hamilton Civic Choir

under Guyon Wells in the

1970s, Musica Sacra under

Indra Hughes in April 2010

and Voices New Zealand

conducted by Karen Grylls in

June 2014.

Kerry Stevens

(Auckland)

Talkback responds: Apologies.

The information was gleaned

from performance publicity and

should have more correctly said

“the first full orchestral version”

of the work.

ENTHUSIASM OVERDOSE

After Nigel Yalden’s All

Blacks-Pumas commentary

(Radio Sport, July 21), I sin-

cerely hope we will be spared

his ravings during the Rugby

World Cup.

Brian Turner

(Waikuku)

Radio

RNZ^ C

oncer

t’s

best^ p

ipa^ pla

ying

Mu

sic^

Ali

ve

Thursd

ay,

8.^00 pm

Karina Canellakis,

Music Alive,

Monday.

Your comments on TV and radio

Talkback

PODCAST OF THE WEEK

EPIC FAIL

Failing, we are told, is a good thing, even when it doesn’t feel

like it. By failing we learn, so the American Public Media pod-

cast Spectacular Failures ought to be a real education. Host

Lauren Ober looks into fascinating business failures, from

Kodak to Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s Christian theme park.

spectacularfailures.org