Leaving London's winter grey for the blue skies of Hawke's Bay, soprano Madeleine Pierard returns home for Christmas performances and to catch up with family.
Pierard left New Zealand in 2006 after winning the Lexus Song Quest and describes herself as living in a state of constant homesickness: "I'd be back in a heartbeat if I thought I could sustain a career in Europe from here," she says.
Her's is, indeed, a cosmopolitan career. A regular at the Royal Opera in Covent Garden, last year The Times newspaper praised her performance, for Shadwell Opera, of Erwartung, Schoenberg's one- woman expressionist meltdown, as "mesmerising, with every facial and body movement signalling a different micro-facet of inner turmoil."
In August, she was in Tianjin, China, for a well-received production of Britten's The Rape of Lucretia. Then back in Auckland, she was the elegant heroine of Rufus Wainwright's Prima Donna in March.
In 2016, Pierard triumphed as Pat Nixon in John Adams' Nixon in China. This required particular stamina as the singer started rehearsals for the opera just five days after giving birth to daughter Eleanor. She speaks glowingly of the support given to her.
"Opera singers who are mothers suffer a lot of discrimination," she says. "With so many people scrambling for roles, companies sometimes take the singer who seems to be the least trouble, claiming that you might put your children before your professional commitments."
