Given Noel Coward once wrote a pointed line about opera - "people are wrong when they say opera is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what's wrong with it" - you might expect NZ Opera general manager Stuart Maunder not to be so fond of the English playwright and raconteur.
But Maunder says he has four great loves in life: opera, "the thing that raises my spirit and makes everything worthwhile", the music of Gilbert and Sullivan, Noel Coward and the Broadway musical.
"To a certain extent, the latter three come down to one thing: a delight in the English language."
He devised his own show, Mad About Coward, to celebrate the music and musings of Coward who, in the 1930s, was the highest earning author in the Western world due to his numerous successful plays, revues, musicals, operetta and songs.
Using a wide variety of sources, from biographies to song lyrics and play lines - some well-known, others more obscure - Maunder has created his tribute show but emphasises he is not impersonating Coward. "I'm completely the opposite of Coward; I'm far more generous of girth!"
