The audience at Divas and Divos, Operatunity’s Daytime Concert at St Columba Church were treated to some of the best operatic voices in the business.
The Three Tenors of New Zealand, Bonaventure Allan-Moetaua, Derek Hill and Kalauni Pouvalu were outstanding with their powerful voices, rivalled only by sopranos Amanda Atlas and Susan Boland who were pitch perfect.
The performers were all accompanied by the talented principal repetiteur for New Zealand Opera David Kelly.
The concert played soaring tributes to the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, Maria Callas, Andrea Bocelli and Placido Domingo, all opera superstars.
Adding a different note to the concert was humour, film clips, interesting anecdotes, arias and ensembles that made these singers famous.
The Three Tenors were a popular operatic singing group during the 1990s and early 2000s, consisting of Spaniards Plácido Domingo and José Carreras and the iconic Italian Luciano Pavarotti.
Interestingly, there were times when the Operatunity singers would share a short clip of the maestros including Joan Sutherland, Maria Callas, Pavarotti, Caruso and Mario Lanza – and then take over singing from the clip – demonstrating well that these singers are a match to contend with.
There were plenty of great melodies like You are My Heart’s Delight' `
Pedro the Fisherman’ and You Raise me Up'. The concert aptly ended with a beautiful rendition of
Time to Say Goodbye’ and the `Battle Hymn of the Republic’.