Delving deep to find treats

What's on the New Zealand Festival's musical menu? While briefly based in Paris, HEATH LEES searches for clues on the festival website.

New Zealand Festival 2002 is not a traditional festival, but an entertaining one.

That's the impression the classical music fan gets from an electronic tour of the musical goodies on the festival's internet site, which will merge into reality at the end of this month.

Where possible, organisers have soft-pedalled classical music and hyped up folk traditions instead, so everything appears as a kind of politically correct, democratic arts activity, with something for everyone.

At first sight, the category music has no classical blockbusters of festival proportions, but bubbles of events that mix and match smaller groups and soloists on a trendy, world-music horizon.

But if you dig deep, you can bring to light a couple of large classical-music attractions, hidden under the name of the sponsor. The TOWER Tribute, for example, is an all-New Zealand concert featuring the NZSO, the NZ String Quartet, home-grown soloists including Jenny Wollerman, Patrick Power and Jonathan Lemalu, and all the TOWER voices, young and old.

Since the concert is dedicated to the memory of New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn, there are two works by him, then a piece by Lyell Creswell (Lilburn's pupil, says the helpful publicity) plus The Bells by Rachmaninov, a good composer if not a New Zealand one.

Richard Strauss' famous opera Der Rosenkavalier is surely the festival's glittering centrepiece. Incredibly, you can't find it on the first page, nor even in the music category, but in a line by itself, unpoetically branded on behalf of the sponsor as The Telecom Opera.

A sumptuous event such as Der Rosenkavalier should have been splashed over the festival's front page, complete with the fine soloists on offer and another special mention for the NZSO, this time fronting up in an opera with such a fabulous score it often sounds like a symphony. Full of fun, good tunes and the most famous vocal trio in the world, the work will no doubt overcome the embarrassment over classical music the publicity suggests, and light up the festival's horizon.

Lights of a different sort can be expected from the NBR Stadium Spectacular, which offers nearly three hours of - wait for it - the world's most loved music, made more lovable still by lasers, firework displays and other marvels. The repertoire is predictable: Bizet's Overture and March of the Toreadors from Carmen; Bizet's Duet from The Pearl Fishers; Vivaldi's Spring Concerto; Verdi's Quartet from Rigoletto ...

As for the smaller groups and items, there are some exciting things to be found, and a few intriguing ways of bringing them together.

Having two Schubert song-cycles by different performers is appealing.

First is the visiting duo of baritone Christian Gerhaher (gesture-free, says the British press) and pianist Gerold Huber (gesture-full, they say). A fortnight later comes the New Zealand team of Jonathan Lemalu and Terence Dennis with another Schubert song-cycle - good programming, yes, but whether Schubert's world-weary Winterreise will work for such a young and energetic singer as Lemalu remains to be heard.

Nowadays the world classical scene is awash with groups that flit from medieval to metal and from renaissance to rock with hardly time to draw breath. Like the instrumental group Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, or the British vocal quartet the Hilliard Ensemble, famous for magical sorties into plainchant, but with a fabulous two-CD set of Lassus pieces now in the shops, and a maturing musical friendship with jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek. Each group has its own festival appearance, then combines for a fascinating, purpose-built programme of musical time-travel called Bloed (Blood).

It's a pity the New Zealand String Quartet doesn't appear on its own platform, though it does share a pot-pourri evening with the dynamic Singaporean Tang Quartet, and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano. Any or all of these groups would have been worth hearing in their own right.

Off-the-wall, one-man operas are represented by Mikel Rouse's Failing Kansas. Rouse's multi-layered techniques and counterpoetry are gaining fans outside the US, particularly in Australia, and for those who stay the course, his collage performance will be exhilarating.

It's hard to work up much enthusiasm over Nestor Marconi, pretentiously described as "one of the most important bandoneon players in the world today". Misguided attempts to gear up folk traditions into the language of art are tacky, and even Misia and her Portuguese Fado genre sound hollow in the loud proclamation of a 150-year-old art form. Monty Alexander, on the other hand, is described as an exciting, versatile Jamaican jazz pianist. Exactly. No need for art-critic games with music that speaks for itself and can find its own level, thank you.

Some musical events appear under Heineken, since that's the name of the big wooden tent they take place in. If you didn't know this, you might miss boundary-crossing treats like Bravura, and Indian Ocean, to say nothing of the the unmissable Kate Dimbleby, seductively re-creating the spell of Peggy Lee.

Yes, there are treats around, though some are hidden away, some are badly described, and some are even in the wrong box. Seek hard though, and ye shall find.