Requiem for an old favourite

In 2003, Stephen Bennett's Polyphemus in NBR New Zealand Opera's Acis and Galatea was a scene-stealer. Now the Australian bass is back in Auckland for Mozart with the Auckland Philharmonia and admits he enjoyed his spot of Handelian villainy.

"Villains are always much more fun than nice guys," he says, "because you have the licence to be what you aren't in real life. It's one of the advantages of being a bass - all the tenors are cast as the heroes, the poor guys."

In reality, Bennett is quite the opposite, despite having played Claggart in the Australian Opera's Billy Budd, "a psychopath with no redeeming features at all. You just have to do your best to be totally violent and hideous in the interest of theatre."

This is a man, in fact, who coaches his son's soccer team and, when I ask him about playing opposite Teddy Tahu Rhodes in Adelaide's Dead Man Walking, he enthuses about how the opera's stand against the death penalty was "very affecting for all of us involved".

Bennett's career dates back to the early 80s when he chose to give up his guitar and jazz-rock ambitions and join the eight-voice Leonine Consort.

Embarrassed when his music reading wasn't up to scratch, he "took piles of music home and learned it as quickly as I could. This gave me a musical confidence and now I can learn difficult music fast and accurately."

His roles for Scottish Opera and Australian Opera have spanned from Mozart to Britten and Janacek, and he has also been a regular guest with the smaller, Sydney-based Pinchgut Opera, in productions of Handel, Purcell and Rameau.

With CDs of all three Pinchgut ventures either released or scheduled for release, "it's fantastic to do some music that suits my voice and get some recordings under my belt," Bennett explains. "All this while supporting a young company and doing some really unusual repertoire. Rameau's Dardanus was a revelation because I really knew very little about the composer. He's way out of the mainstream."

Also unexpected was the opportunity, a few years ago, to sing in an obscure Estonian choral work, Rudolf Tobias' Jonah's Mission. He performed it in Melbourne and Cologne, under the conductor Neeme Jarvi.

Bennett laughs when I ask him about working with Jarvi. "He's a nice enough guy for an ageing superstar conductor" but he found the German professional choirs were "an ear opener.

"It's so difficult in our part of the world where all the big choirs are full of volunteers trying to keep their heads above water. It might be hard to get into the professional European choirs, but if you do, you are paid a decent amount of money. These choirs are worth their salt and you notice it in a piece like the Tobias."

Moving to tomorrow night's Requiem, Bennett cheerily admits the composer is his "bread and butter, old Wolfgang. I've been doing Requiems for years. They keep coming around again and again. It's wonderful employment and you never get sick of them."

Mozart's final opus is clearly one of his favourite works. "It's concise and doesn't waffle on for hours. It's got powerful movements that aren't overdone. And it has this deep emotional and spiritual quality, because you are talking about mature Mozart, of course.

"As a concert singer it can be tedious sitting on the stage for three hours to sing 10 minutes of music. It never is with the Mozart Requiem, which is always such a pleasure to do."

PERFORMANCE

* What: Auckland Philharmonia

* Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, tomorrow at 8pm