{"id":230559,"date":"2026-01-13T03:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/230559\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T03:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:29:07","slug":"mary-plazas-leads-inspiring-new-zealand-opera-school-masterclass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/230559\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Plazas leads inspiring New Zealand Opera School masterclass"},"content":{"rendered":"
Plazas leapt around the four students, adjusting chins, heads, shoulders and all the while telling them they were marvellous.<\/p>\n
Her masterclass was all about the students, not about entertaining the capacity audience.<\/p>\n
It was enlightening and terrific to hear this world-class tutor at work, physically rearranging her students while giving encouragement with every move.<\/p>\n
The students, sopranos Shana Matthews, Millie Trusttum, Sarah Mileham and baritone Fa\u2019amanu Fonoti-Fuimaono, were all eager to be front and centre of this masterclass.<\/p>\n
Accompanying them was the prestigious Terence Dennis.<\/p>\n
It was riveting and fascinating watching Plazas whirling around these young singers.<\/p>\n
There were many times I wanted to cheer, too.<\/p>\n
Plazas has only recently retired from the stage, where she was a company principal with English National Opera, her highlights there including the role of Cio-Cio San in an acclaimed production of Madama Butterfly, as well as performing at Glyndebourne and throughout Europe. <\/p>\n
Plazas has talked frequently about how she is passionate about nurturing the next generation of young singers.<\/p>\n
For the audience listening to these students on Monday night, it was inspiring.<\/p>\n
Soprano Sarah Mileham was a standout as Mimi singing the glorious aria from Puccini\u2019s La Boheme, Donde Luieta Usi.<\/p>\n
Mileham was incredible and we will hear more of her as she climbs to the top rungs of international opera.<\/p>\n
As Dennis said at the start of the masterclass, it was a thrill to hear young New Zealand singers before they left for overseas and then to hear them when they are successful.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing more satisfying for me.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plazas leapt around the four students, adjusting chins, heads, shoulders and all the while telling them they were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15674,22055,7052,9690,117,111,43,139,69,44525,137261,3109,4062,80],"class_list":["post-230559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-inspiring","tag-leads","tag-mary","tag-masterclass","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opera","tag-plazas","tag-public","tag-school","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}