Singing, sex and a couple of divas

Frederica von Stade, left, and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa's masterclass had gems of advice and jokes. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

It is a fleeting touchdown for Frederica von Stade, on her way to a Saturday night concert in the capital, joining Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in another of the good dame's foundation fundraisers.

Nevertheless, the American mezzo leaves the audience at Newmarket's Opera Factory feeling privileged.

"I just happened to find this as I came on stage," von Stade jests, as she enters wearing a livery coat, borrowed from Opera Factory's wardrobe. Beside her, Dame Kiri is chic in white shirt and trousers.

There is banter about combining singing and partying, and then the essential problem of the singer. "We don't see the instrument," von Stade says, "and anyway it's about as big as a dime. So much is in the imagination and what you can do with it.

"Singing and sex are two forms of expression that come from inside the body," she adds, nudgingly.

Dame Kiri emphasises emotional truth for a singer, von Stade the virtues of obedience. "A lot of the work has been done for us by the composers," she explains. "Our job is to do what we are told by coaches, directors, singing teachers. We are the eternal student and there is little that separates us and the younger singers - just age and experience."

Minutes later, five Auckland singers reap the benefit of that experience. Dame Kiri gives the soundest advice to Carmel Carroll after an aria from Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito: "Don't rest on the first phrase. Everything is leading on."

The young Sarah Wall, in Voi che sapete from Opera Factory's forthcoming Figaro, is very much feeling her way into the part of a lovestruck Cherubino.

"Set it up with a person in mind and make it a little more specific," von Stade tells her. "What you are trying to do is knock her flat."

Dame Kiri steps in after Claire Nash gives all she's got to an aria from Handel's Julius Caesar, commenting: "The more intention you have, the more it comes off the page. You must enjoy the phrase. I need to hear you wallow in gorgeous sound and present this indulgence to me."

Helen Medlyn's moving account of Gluck's Che faro has von Stade cooing like a NZ Idol panellist - "you really got to me" - while Dame Kiri is more specific, advising Medlyn to anticipate a high note. She demonstrates, Medlyn follows. It works.

Zan McKendree-Wright is rich-toned for Der Rosenkavalier, but Strauss' opulent canvas does not quite emerge from Rosemary Barnes' valiant piano, and, frankly, Dame Kiri should not have been coerced into donning glasses and singing a few lines. But the advice of one of the great Marschallins is spot on: "The longer you can sing the long notes, the better."

The session ends with von Stade remembering how her best Pelleas and Melisande was not one of the more intense, tear-wrenching performances but one where she was thinking of the ham sandwich she'd soon be having.

A question from the floor brings up the delicate subject of the ageing voice, an irrefutable fact of nature for two singers in their early 60s. Dame Kiri admits there are things she simply does not sing any more.

More interestingly, she laments the noise that surrounds us, in the street and in the concert hall. "I don't hear pianissimo," she tells us. "Where is it?" The solution? "You have to choose to work with the right people. Don't work with the loud ones."

The reward of the morning is Ah guarda sorella from Cosi fan Tutte. The women are relaxed and informal and Dame Kiri is in lustrous voice. Von Stade gives a full characterisation. The best joke comes at the end: von Stade was singing to a pet pooch, Dame Kiri to her yacht.

A fascinating 90 minutes is a neat reminder that Opera Factory is staging its own Mozart Festival. The highlight is alternating productions of The Marriage of Figaro and Louis Nowra's play Cosi. Mark the opening nights, March 17 and 18, in your diary.