Ivan Rebroff the Russian emperor of easy listening

By WILLIAM DART

"May I help you anyhow?" is Ivan Rebroff's greeting from his Sydney hotel, halfway through his Australian tour.

The concerts are going well, the audiences are singing along with Waltzing Matilda, and he was one of the sell-out acts of the Adelaide Festival.

"I was absolutely touched when they put Auckland on my tour," the Russian basso proffers. "The last time I was there was 20 years ago. I got three golden records from New Zealand."

Thirty years ago, along with Nana Mouskouri and James Last, Rebroff delivered easy listening for 70s lounges.

The septuagenarian Russian is still delivering the same reliable fare, with what one Australian critic describes as "a folkloric dream of a mildly kitschy, tsarist Mother Russia which lays most of the 20th century to one side".

Our conversation rambles at first. The Australian temperatures (34C in Perth) have him discussing "how to dress especially for the voice", peppered with a few stage coughs.

He's looking forward to more temperate New Zealand ("Wellington is the second windy town in the world, no?").

His memories of New Zealand, apart from his great success with a Maori version of Now is the Hour, include our little woolly wonders.

When he commented on radio during his last tour that he'd like to cuddle a little sheep, dozens of farmers contacted him, eager to oblige.

This time kiwi-breeding stations are top of his list: "I like very much the possibility of coming in touch with nature, people and animals," he explains.

Born on the road, to parents escaping from Communist Russia, he jests that his home is "on board the Air New Zealand Boeing 707" but his heart is really back on the Greek island where he lives.

"I have a little house - well, it's more a villa than a little house and I retire there to find a way to cool down and get new ideas."

Yet is it really new ideas that Rebroff's audiences are after?

The man is a Romantic at heart and wants to show us that real music still exists out there. Much of what passes today for music "is noise", he insists.

"Noise that is very successful because it makes money. All over the world, starting in America, they are shrieking and selling it like singing. I will show how you can sing and not be old-fashioned."

Maybe the man could be a guest judge on NZ Idol?

He talks of his Russian bel canto - "you use the voice to show the personality of the character in the song" - and demonstrates three or four ways to sing just one vowel, depending on whether he's a farmer, priest or lovesick maiden.

He's more guarded about his celebrated four-and-a-half octave range. "It is a gift," he says, molto serioso, "but, as I get older, I don't want to be used like a puppet on a string with people only wanting to see how high or low I can sing. This is like a circus.

"It must be suitable to the songs," he continues. "If I am singing The Song of the Nightingale, of course, I'm using my voice up there," Rebroff explains, his pitch trailing up to helium heights. "If it's the song of a drunken sailor, drunken priest, or drunken monk, then I'm using my basso," he counters, dropping off the bottom of the stave.

Remembering how efficiently my Russian friends could down their vodkas and cognacs, I ask Rebroff whether he's a keen imbiber.

This occasions a great rumble of a laugh. "As long as it's not a drug it's a pleasure. I love wine with a wonderful rich meal and one, two or three vodkas - it's not a sin if you are not a slave to it. Why did our Lord change water to wine at the feast of Canaan? Because wine is a fantastic drink."

Can this jolly man, still clocking up between 150 and 250 concerts a year, ever see himself retiring?

"Ah, my dear," he replies, his voice floating up into the ether, "I'm disappearing very softly, fading myself out. It is a wonderful feeling not to have a special date for the end of the career, finding out how long I can sing, and how long people are willing to listen to me."

Performance

* Who: Ivan Rebroff

* Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Tuesday 8pm