Singer sets her heart on Europe

Wanganui has been so good to young opera singer Bryony Williams that she is bringing her fundraising show back to the River City next Saturday.

Williams has attended the New Zealand Opera School in Wanganui three times and said the rapturous audiences had been rewarding for students.

After four years of study at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington, the young New Plymouth soprano is now heading for the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. She's hoping the move will launch her into a career in Europe.

The Wanganui concert is one of three raising funds for her studies.

Singing with her will be her friends and fellow opera singers mezzosoprano Bianca Andrew and tenor Amitai Pati.

Wanganui opera lovers will remember all three from the Wanganui Opera Week show in January.

In it Williams was dressed in black with a long red shawl and sang a Verdi song of love and longing.

"Verdi just does something for me," she said.

Her Farewell Concert in Wanganui is at the Kingsgate Hotel on April 14, starting at 7.30pm.

She and her friends will be singing opera excerpts and also some crowd-pleasing numbers from musical shows like West Side Story and Les Miserables.

They will sing together and alone, accompanied by one of New Zealand's finest, Bruce Greenfield, on piano.