Contralto brings her special style to Bach

Kate Spence. Photo / The Aucklander.

In a city well served by mezzos, Kate Spence has her own niche. Her rich contralto voice has her sought after for the musicianship and unerring style that she brings to works such as Bach's Mass in B Minor, which Auckland Choral is performing tonight.

"I started as a little soprano back in 1994," she says, "but I couldn't make headway. It wasn't until I was singing at a Hawkes Bay summer school that I found a way ahead.

"Two of the tutors, Rosemary Gordon and Beatrice Webster, stopped the session, looked at one another and had a bit of talk ... and it was all down hill, or at least down pitch, from there."

Singers can be coy when describing their own voices but Spence defines hers as "more of a contralto, even if people throw around terms like 'lower mezzo'.

"As time goes on," she continues, "it's settling lower. That's not to say that I don't have the high notes if I need them, but the richness of colour is in the lower range."

Spence has proved herself on the opera stage and some will remember her as one of a trio of wickedly amusing ladies in NBR New Zealand Opera's The Magic Flute in 2006. A year later, she was a noble Cornelia in Auckland Opera Studio's Julius Caesar.

Yet when I bring up her stirring Brahms Alto Rhapsody with Bach Musica last year, Spence admits that opera "doesn't often give you the chance to be a contralto soloist. In opera, we're always witches, mothers and maids. In the Brahms you can feel you're in command of the stage. It's your baby."

Spence admits that she has always had "some odd love affair with Brahms. The way he writes makes so much sense. He makes the most of the voice with those long, soaring phrases."

Playing one of the handmaids in Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Elektra three months ago presented another challenge.

"Strauss gives you something of a mathematical equation to solve," she laughs.

"The handmaids all weave in among one another and you've got to have your head around where things are going."

However, the chance to experience Elizabeth Connell's Elektra was "a singing lesson in itself from start to finish. What an opportunity to see such a professional in action."

Tonight, in Bach's mighty Mass in B minor, Spence faces some intense intellectual and musical challenges.

"It's hard stuff," she exclaims.

"It's real medicine and I love getting my teeth into it. It feels so right for my voice. Bach writes for singers as if we were instrumentalists and makes the same demands on us. So, after the oboe has played that wonderful introduction to the Qui sedes you have to come in, without any interruption, as if you're the continuation of that sound."

An interesting comment this, especially when so many instrumentalists claim that the human voice is their ultimate inspiration.

Spence agrees and brings up yet another issue that singers have to consider.

"In the Agnus Dei, there are also huge demands in terms of breath and phrasing. How marvellous it would be if you could sing the whole thing in one breath just like some string player might play it - with an unimaginably long bow."

Once again, Uwe Grodd wields the baton for tonight's performance and Spence places great store on the relationship between conductor and soloist.

Her ideal takes practical considerations into account, looking for "someone who understands that you need time to breathe, who will put you in your best light and follow you if necessary.

"It's an organic kind of thing. Everything need not be rehearsed to the letter but, with the right partnership, it will just work together and fit."

Performance:

What: Auckland Choral

Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, tonight at 7.30pm