Young opera singer Kauwiti Selwyn with his mum Maraea Kea at their home just outside Kaikohe. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF
Young opera singer Kauwiti Selwyn with his mum Maraea Kea at their home just outside Kaikohe. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF
A young Northlander who didn't know what opera was until he hired Les Miserables from a video shop thinking it was a movie about a mutant superhero has made it to the finals of New Zealand's top contest for young opera singers.
After reaching the final five of last week's Opera Idol in Auckland, Kauwiti Selwyn, 18, now has his sights set on the NZ Aria Competition next May - the contest which launched the careers of opera stars such as Sol3 Mio's Pene Pati.
The teenage tenor's path to opera is an unlikely one. It began two years ago in Kaikohe's Video Ezy when the then 16-year-old Northland College student was looking for an action movie featuring Wolverine, an immortal mutant superhero.
He picked Les Miserables because it starred Hugh Jackman, who played Wolverine in the 2013 movie, only to discover he'd wasted his money by accidentally hiring a musical.
It was a long way back to the video shop so he watched it anyway. Mostly it bored him but he enjoyed one of the songs. It was a style he wasn't familiar with so he asked his mum, Maraea Kea, what it was.
When he Googled her answer, opera, the first thing that came up was a clip of Luciano Pavarotti singing his signature aria Nessum Dorma. He was hooked instantly.
"I was really taken by his singing, the drama of it. It was an eye-opener. I thought, 'I want to see if I can do that'."
Kauwiti played and re-played the YouTube clip as he tried to master it himself - no mean feat when you're copying the world's most famous opera singer and the words are in Italian - until his mum pounded on the wall to make him stop.
"I kept singing it because it was so cool. My mum told me to shut up and go outside and sing to the cows."
Eventually he plucked up the courage to sing to his English teacher and then a school assembly. The reaction was tears and a standing ovation.
Kauwiti Selwyn stole the show at the Turner Centre's 10th anniversary variety concert last month. PHOTO / PETER DE GRAAF
The same happened when the local Lions club invited him to sing at a Christmas party. When the audience demanded more he admitted it was the only opera song he knew.
Among those listening was district councillor Sally Macauley. She introduced Kauwiti to Carol Maher, a professional opera singer from the US who now teaches in Kerikeri. Since then Ms Maher has been honing his vocal technique as well as teaching him piano, music theory and history, and foreign language skills.
He has sung at a Ratana festival in Brisbane, a Maori Women's Welfare League talent quest in Whakatane and the 10th anniversary celebrations at Kerikeri's Turner Centre, but last week's Opera Idol was his first serious competition.
Kauwiti said it was "the best experience ever" and would help him prepare for next year's NZ Aria Competition - but the highlight was being surrounded, for the first time, by other teenagers who love opera.
"That was exciting, that was really cool."
Most of the other contestants came from big cities and well-to-do backgrounds. Many had been training for years. He doubted anyone of Cook Islands Maori-Ngapuhi descent had entered before.
The Opera Idol finalists with Kauwiti Selwyn at back centre. PHOTO / SUPPLIED
Kauwiti, now in Year 13, plans to focus solely on singing next year. After that he wants to study music at university. His dream is to one day travel the world performing opera, but always returning to Northland and offering scholarships to aspiring young Maori and Pacific Island singers.
But most of all he wants to keep sharing his talent and the joy of music.
* Kauwiti will perform at the Ngapuhi Festival in Kaikohe on January 30-31. You can also see him occasionally playing trombone or tenor horn in the Piriwiritua Ratana Marching Band, along with his mum and all four siblings. He placed third equal among the 15-18-year-olds at Opera Idol with You Are My Heart's Delight from the operetta Land of Smiles composed by Franz Lehar and made famous by Richard Tauber. The contest was won by Auckland's Michaela Cadwgan. Director Sally Sloman described Kauwiti as "a delightful and well-presented young lad with a promising voice in very early stages of development".
