KEY POINTS:
A week in Auckland for Simon O'Neill has been sandwiched between appearing in Nelson's Sealord Opera in the Park and Sydney rehearsals for the tenor's Australian opera debut in Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk.
Next Saturday he crosses back over the Tasman to join the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra for its annual Summer Matinee concert.
And just in case you were not aware that O'Neill is one of the world's most sought-after young Heldentenors, just last month the Arts Channel featured him alongside Waltraud Meier and Sir John Tomlinson singing Wagner's Die Walkure, in the magical setting of the Italian town of Ravello under the baton of Daniel Barenboim.
"I pinched myself in the arm," the jocular O'Neill confides, "and said, 'You done good boy'.
"I still can't believe I'm working at that sort of level, with Daniel Barenboim and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Apart from having all that musicianship, Barenboim's a man with such great leadership abilities - he's right in there with all the major political figures of the Middle East."
The orchestra, an amalgam of young Jewish and Arab musicians, is "full of wunderkinder", the tenor says. "At the most extreme you have the young Jewish leader of the Berlin Philharmonic alongside a Palestinian boy of 9 or 10 who's only been playing violin for three years."
Waltraud Meier, Sieglinde to O'Neill's Siegmund, "has sung with the best people in the best houses and I'm there soaking it up like a sponge. She says, 'Look at this Simon, do this,' or might tell me that an 's' isn't long enough on a certain German word".
O'Neill is still glowing from his success as Caesar in the 2008 Carnegie Hall revival of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, in which he shared the stage with Teddy Tahu Rhodes' Antony.
"For two Kiwi boys, we've come a long way from Christchurch," O'Neill laughs. "And musically, Caesar is such a great Straussian role."
New York magazine critic Justin Davidson suggested that O'Neill was just the man for the role, "thrillingly imperial" with "his bright tenor glinting like a sword in the Mediterranean sun".
"Life lately has been cramming, cramming, cramming," O'Neill sighs, "learning all these new roles."
The Sydney Lady Macbeth, which will be sung in English and recorded for release on the Chandos label, is another highly anticipated adventure. "Sergei is one of the nastiest characters I've ever played," O'Neill tells me, with some relish.
Perhaps Saturday's APO concert will be a comparative stroll, I suggest, but O'Neill will have none of it. "It's a high-pressure gig for me," is the quick retort.
"In Nelson Helen Medlyn and I sang Baby It's Cold Outside and she taught me some mike technique. I absolutely adored it, so on Saturday I'll be taking the mike off its stand and singing some lovely Mario Lanza numbers."
Here's a tenor who is a bit of a jazz buff on the side; a man who grooves to Ray Charles, Betty Carter and Dinah Washington, is happy to pluck a mean bass in a jazz trio and has the keyboard chops to either accompany himself in Wagner or dally with an Oscar Peterson arrangement.
O'Neill has harsh words for pop singers who deal out "dumb, inappropriate jazz inflections" and, when it comes to his own singing, he will be drawing on all his technical training when he sings Schumann's Dichterliebe in Sydney next month.
Come April, O'Neill will be rehearsing Lohengrin at Covent Garden, and looking forward to Janacek under Pierre Boulez and Fidelio with Barenboim. His diary is booked ahead to 2016, with five Ring cycles in 2013, including Covent Garden.
"I'm pinching myself in the arm a lot these days."
Performance
Who: Simon O'Neill with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Summer Matinee
Where and when: Government House, Mt Eden, Saturday, February 14, 2pm
