Prince Eddie wows Austria

By HEATH LEES

Can stage-fright spoil the career of New Zealand opera-singer Eddie Muliaumaseali'i? Never, he says. His only case of performance nerves happened 15 years ago, when he ran onto the pitch at Eden Park as an Auckland under-20, before a crowd of 30,000.

Muliaumaseali'i's passion for playing rugby stayed with him for many years, even while he was "messing about" with singing. He remembers being bullied by his brother Sani, an emerging tenor singer, into applying for bit-parts with Mercury Opera, and regularly delivering his Paul Robeson-style party piece, Ol' Man River from Showboat.

Two years out from his 30th birthday, Muliaumaseali'i decided to give it a go, and, with Sani's help, auditioned for the Queensland Conservatorium of Music in Brisbane. They accepted him on the spot.

Muliaumaseali'i's laughter booms out. "That was when I discovered what I didn't know. I'd always listened to a lot of music, but it was all opera and show-tunes. I could do Verdi arias standing on my head, but I knew nothing about German lieder, British art-song or stuff like that. First off in class they asked us to harmonise a spiritual in 16th-century madrigal style. I was still memorising 'Every Good Boy Deserves Favour' for the note-names."

But he could sing. So Muliaumaseali'i entered the McDonald's Aria Competition in 1997. From 111 Australasian singers, the judge, conductor Richard Bonynge, picked Muliaumaseali'i. "An outstanding voice ... tremendous presence ... all the attributes of an operatic star," said Bonynge as he handed Muliaumaseali'i the $40,000 prize.

But even success like that doesn't bring the gold at the end of the rainbow. Muliaumaseali'i is realistic. "It just gets you out of one queue of thousands, and puts you into another queue of thousands."

So how has Muliaumaseali'i now got himself onto the payroll as a principal artist in one of Austria's better-known opera houses - the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck - as one of the up-and-coming proteges of the company's director, famous opera star Brigitte Fassbaender? With a shrug, Muliaumaseali'i says he arrived late, and has sidestepped the usual conservatorium process.

But those who heard him sing last Sunday at the Pumphouse in Takapuna during his one Auckland concert, could tell that what stands out is a great natural voice, uncluttered with too much training.,

It's Muliaumaseali'i's basic, natural gift of voice, plus an unforced intensity of expression that has captivated everyone, including the Fassbaenders of this world. Again it was outside encouragement that got Muliaumaseali'i into her field of vision. Two years ago, Victor Morris, head of auditions for English National Opera, was auditioning in Australia, heard Muliaumaseali'i's voice, and pleaded with him to enter an upcoming demonstration masterclass in London's Wigmore Hall later in the year. Muliaumaseali'i's audition secured him a place. Suddenly Muliaumaseali'i realised he had to sing a German lieder. Morris told him to choose one they could work on together at short notice. Muliaumaseali'i chose one with only two short pages - Der Doppelganger. Unaware that this was a song with such ghostly intensity that even famous singers avoid it, Muliaumaseali'i threw himself into the piece and after two weeks a stunned Fassbaender pronounced it "exactly right."

Already, he's a hit with the German-speaking press, who somehow discovered that his father has chiefly status in Samoa. They bill him as "The Prince of Samoa."

Now, politicians and business magnates who meet him after a performance ask him how they should address him. They are relieved to know that it's not "Your Highness." Neither is it "Herr Muliaumaseali'i" - a minefield of vowels and liquid Pacific consonants that terrifies them. "Call me Eddie," says this genial, Auckland-born Samoan.