Second time around for Mahler's magic

Jonathan Lemalu

"Hello. Pizza Hut," is the jocular response when I catch Jonathan Lemalu on the phone. I'm not fooled for a second, as I know New Zealand's high-flying bass-baritone prefers organic food and Japanese cuisine.

Lemalu is enjoying revisiting the Mahler Wunderhorn songs he performed with the NZSO at last year's London Proms, but on Saturday in Auckland he is working with a new conductor, Matthias Bamert.

"Matthias has a lovely, dry humour," he says, "and we've been focusing on songs like St Anthony because it's a strange one. He is trying to wring the last drop of irony and humour out of the orchestral lines."

The ultimate irony for Lemalu is that a composer as complex as Mahler tries so hard to make things sound simple, a simplicity the singer can catch "with a twinkle in the eye and singing little more off the voice".

Few bass-baritones from this country have had so gorgeous a natural instrument as Lemalu, but he admires colleagues such as Simon Keenlysides and Rene Pape.

"They like to be dangerous with their voices. Of course, you have to aim most of the time at making a beautiful sound, but sometimes the lyric approach doesn't do full justice to the drama in the music."

He has completed a Metropolitan Opera tour of Japan, with colleagues such as Magdalena Kozena, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Anna Netrebko. In Europe, Lemalu is sought-after for his skill in Baroque opera.

Nevertheless, he is in a tough line of work and finds it disconcerting when he returns to New Zealand to be "bandied about as a superstar.

"When I'm in Europe or the States, I'm a working singer. I am still fighting my way into the music, roles and places I want to be part of. I worry when I hear praise from myself, let alone younger singers."

What he looks for is positive criticism. "I like it when there is something in the music that took the reviewer by surprise, a little kind of treasure that might be flying around in a big, loud kind of tornado, or when the audience hears something they haven't picked up in other renditions."

In other words, we just need to open our imaginations, he adds.

Lemalu has had to stretch his imagination considerably in taking on the wild and wacky world of Baroque opera, especially in Munich.

He describes his outlandish costume as Argante in Rinaldo, working from his high platform boots and leather pants through to grid-iron pads and a mask like a TV on his head. "And it weighed 40 kilograms," he winces.

He loves Handel's music for the challenge of its coloratura. "It's like a kind of sport - you have to train for it. And if it doesn't sound dramatic there is no point in doing it."

Lemalu has only recently caught up with Inia Te Wiata singing Purcell, "doing semi-coloratura in that very English cathedral style. I'd only heard him in the lighter stuff, such as Osmin, and I was very impressed."

Like the late Maori singer, Lemalu is drawn to lighter repertoire. He may listen to rapper Kanye West and soul diva Mary J. Blige on his iPod, but he also grooves to Cole Porter, and Richard Rodney Bennett's popular cabaret songs, where he is "transfixed by the wordplay and a sort of Gershwin sound you could throw yourself into".

Lemalu doesn't apologise, and nor should he. "I try to get away from classical music. I don't listen to it unless I'm at least remotely intrigued. It all seems too close to work."


Performance

* What: The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, with Jonathan Lemalu

* Where and when: Baycourt Theatre, Tauranga, Thursday 8pm; Auckland Town Hall, Sat 8pm