72 LISTENER SEPTEMBER 7 2019
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT
The Best of the Week
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 8
Opera on Sunday (RNZ Concert,
6.00pm). A new Glyndebourne
production of The Magic Flute
is tonight’s opera from the
BBC Proms. Ryan Wiggles-
worth, composer in residence
at the English National Opera,
conducts the Glyndebourne
Chorus, the Orches-
tra of the Age of
Enlightenment
and a cast of
young soloists,
including
soprano
Sofia Fomina,
baritone Björn
Bürger and tenor
David Portillo.THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 12
Music Alive (RNZ Concert,
8.00pm). The Auckland Town
Hall hosts two superstars in
tonight’s live broadcast: leg-
endary pianist and conductor
Vladimir Ashkenazy and violin
virtuoso Viktoria Mullova. She
will be performing Sibelius’
dramatic ViolinConcerto after the Auckland
Philharmonia Orchestra opens
with Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and
Juliet Fantasy-Overture. The
night concludes with Dvořák’s
turbulent Symphony No 7.FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 13
Music Alive (RNZ Concert,
8.00pm). The sacred and
the sublime combine
in Prom 54, which
draws on Duke
Ellington’s bound-
ary-crossing
Sacred Concerts.
Jamaican pianist
Monty Alexander,
the BBC Singers, Car-
leen Anderson and the
UK Vocal Assembly and the Nu
Civilisation Orchestra perform
tracks from the three albums
Ellington recorded in churches,
including Westminster Abbey
not long before he died in- In other Proms, Andris
Nelsons conducts the Leipzig
Gewandhaus Orchestra and
organist Michael Schönheit in
Prom 47 (Music Alive, Saturday,
8.00pm); the Orchestre de Paris
is under the baton of Daniel
Harding in Prom 50 (Music
Alive, Monday, 8.00pm); and
Ryan Wigglesworth is in action
again on Tuesday with the
Britten Sinfonia and Canadian
virtuoso pianist Marc-André
Hamelin for Prom 52, a con-
cert of Mozart, Tchaikovsky
and Stravinsky (Music Alive,
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.DURUFLÉ RULES
The first Wellington per-
formance of the Duruflé
Requiem (Talkback, August 3)
was on July 20, 1985, sung by
Festival Singers, conducted
by Guy Jansen and accom-
panied by the Wellington
Regional Orchestra. I have
the original programme and
was also in the choir.
Dorothy Hancock
(Auckland)CAPTION COMPETITION
Last year, we joined Voda-
fone TV. Once it was up and
running, we could no longer
access the closed captions
on TVNZ and Three. I have
rung Vodafone several times
and been told the problem is
being worked on. We are in
our seventies and quite deaf,
so would find the captions
helpful, if we could see them.
Chris Edmunds
(Whangārei Harbour)
Talkback responds: Vodafone
tells us that it is aiming to have
closed captioning available
on its new TV device, which
launches this month, and that
there will be a software update
for current Vodafone TV users.HOT AIR
I accept RNZ National’s
First Up with Indira Stewart
(weekdays, 5.00am), as the
curtain-raiser to Morning
Report, strikes a less formal
tone than the programme
that follows it.
But an eight-minute item
about an Australian who
recorded his own fart and
based a piece of music onit (August 23)? Really? And
for good measure, an audio
clip of another of his farts,
especially recorded for the
delectation of the First Up
audience? Good grief.
Karl du Fresne
(Masterton)
Talkback responds: Are we sure
it wasn’t a sparrow’s fart?WINNERS AND LOSERS
When one fails to win a
Lotto prize, there’s some
consolation in knowing that
charities will benefit. Slightly
more than 20% of the ticket
price goes to charities, which
the Lottery Grants Board
chooses. It’s good to know
that just over half the ticket
sales income goes to winning
ticket holders (the rest goes in
administration and tax).
If, instead of buying Lotto
tickets, an investor chose
to give the money directly
to one or more registered
charities, they would get the
full amount (100%). And if
the donor then put in a tax
claim, they would get back
a third of their donation – a
kind of sure-fire winning
ticket. If they then were to
feel guilty for giving only
two-thirds of what they
thought they were giving, the
remedy is simple: send some
or all of the rebated funds to
a charity. The receipt for this
donation can be included in
the following year’s tax claim.
The sum given to charities is,
like the sum spent on Lotto
tickets, a personal choice.
D Lovatt
(Carterton)AL
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Talkback
PODCAST OF THE WEEK
THE DRINKING DETECTIVES
To date, Drunk Women Solving Crime have not solved a crime,
but never say never. Writer-comedians Hannah George, Catie
Wilkins and Taylor Glenn down cocktails while discussing
true crime stories with their guests. Well, drinking and solv-
ing the world’s problems do go together.
drunkwomensolvingcrime.comSofia Fomina,
Opera on Sunday.