72 LISTENER MARCH 10 2018
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY MARCH 10
Music Alive (RNZ Concert,- 3 0 p m ). In Curtain Raiser,
Roger Smith explores Olivier
Messiaen’s Quartet for the
End of Time, which will be
performed by the NZTrio and
British clarinet prodigy
Julian Bliss in the
following concert,
recorded in
Wellington’s
Michael Fowler
Centre. The
innovative
work, in which
Messiaen eschews
traditional concepts
of musical time (although
the quartet was inspired by
the Book of Revelation and
the literal end of time), was
famously composed in a pris-
oner-of-war camp in Germany
and first performed in a hut
for a group of 400 prisoners
and guards.SUNDAY MARCH 11
Opera on Sunday (RNZ Concert,
6.00pm). Georgian mezzo-
soprano Anita Rachvelishvili
fair steals the show as the
gypsy Azucena in the
Met’s production
of Verdi’s Il Tro-
vatore, according
to the New
York Times. She
“brings back the
role’s nuances, its
range of colours,
its emotional grada-
tions”, although there was
also praise for South Korean
tenor Yonghoon Lee as Man-
rico and Americans Quinn
Kelsey and Jennifer Rowley
as the Count di Luna and
Leonora.FRIDAY MARCH 16
Music Alive (RNZ Concert,- 3 0 p m ). The sounds of
New Orleans, courtesy
of the 2015 Welling-
ton Jazz Festival and
the amazing Dee Dee
Bridgewater, still going
strong at 67. Trum-
peter Irvin Mayfield
leads the 18-piece New
Orleans Jazz Orchestra
and began the night
with God Defend New
Zealand. They went
on to perform such
classics as Do You
Know What It Means
to Miss New Orleans,
I’ve Got the World on
a String and What
a Wonderful World.
Bridgewater’s scat
singing “was simply
amazing”, said one
local critic.
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.WHERE THE DOCOS ARE
That’s Entertainment is giving
too much space to pro-
grammes that are visible only
to viewers who have paid a
Sky subscription.
One example: in the
February 17 issue, Fiona Rae
recommended only one
documentary, Meth Storm, on
SoHo. She would have been
better advised to tell most of
us that Māori Television was
screening the magnificent
Ken Burns series The Vietnam
Wa r, which viewers don’t
have to pay for.
Lindsay Shelton
(Wellington)Given the absence of even a
glimmer of interest from the
Listener, people who know
the work of Ken Burns may
not have noticed that his
new 10-part documentary
series on Vietnam has started
screening on Māori Tele-
vision. The first episode was
excellent.
Barry Faville
(Taupo)Further to Myra Shotton’s
comments about digital
media players (Talkback,
February 24), other legiti-
mate sources of material
that can be played on a
modern TV via an Apple TV
are open culture.com and
thoughtmaybe.com.
The former has countless
films, shorts, educational
material, language lessons,
business courses and more,
and the latter is a treasure
trove of documentaries.I couldn’t help noticing
that the magazine hasn’t
mentioned the acclaimed
10-part Ken Burns series The
Vietnam War in either the
Documentaries column or The
Best of the Week. It screens
on Monday nights on Māori
Television and started on
February 19.
Finally, has RNZ Concert
dropped Mark Rogers’ Nash-
ville Babylon?
Fred Muller
(Whangarei)Talkback responds: Apolo-
gies for missing the start of
The Vietnam War on Māori
Television, although we did
mention it when it was made
available online at tvnz.co.nz.
Fred, Nashville Babylon was
scheduled on RNZ Concert
during the summer period, but
still plays on Monday nights on
RNZ National and is also avail-
able on radionz.co.nz.SEVEN SHARPER
At long last, the morons
and then the spoilt children
have gone from Seven Sharp.
Now, we have grown-ups,
and already the programme’s
standard has risen con-
siderably. Mike Hosking’s
twitching, cuff-shooting,
jacket-adjusting, pencil-
tapping and non-stop talking
over his co-host Toni Street is
like a bad dream. His insin-
cerity was displayed when
new co-host Jeremy Wells
found items in Hosking’s old
locker that, like the spoilt
brat he is, he just left behind.
Boris Moiseiwitsch
(Levin)SALVO SPORTATO
Radio
RNZ Concert’s
Best chamber supergroup
Music Alive
Tuesday,7.30pm
Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita
Rachvelishvili, Opera on Sunday.Your comments on TV and radio
Talkback