Dame Malvina Major: From Gumboots to Glory

Dame Malvina Major was the seventh of eight children, born into a musical family in Hamilton on 28 January 1943 (the Taranaki connection comes later).

Although she doesn't remember it, her first public performance was just before Christmas of 1945. The toddler was not even three years old when she spontaneously joined her brothers and sisters on stage during an important concert in Hamilton. As she climbed up, the wee dot caught the elastic on her underpants, but without missing a beat or a word she completed the performance by continually hoisting up her knickers. The audience loved her and even her mother, Eva, who was angry at her daughter's disobedience, was forced to admit she had sung admirably. From then on, this far-sighted woman became determined to nurture Malvina's gift.

After her first performance, the youngster became a member of the Major Trio, with sister Betty and brother Donald. Their repertoire included show tunes, Māori melodies, country and western, folk songs, hit singles, classical numbers and ballads.

In 1955, she began her classical training with Sister Mary Magdalen in Ngāruawāhia. In a biography written by David Jillett, the sister recalls that first lesson: "I remember it all as if it were yesterday. The voice of that 12-year-old was not unlike what it is now, with round, open, even notes, intelligently sung. The essentials were all there - that tremendous love for singing, her personality coming through in her work with that warmth which always attracts listeners."

Looking back on her career, Dame Malvina remembers the moment she knew she had a special voice. Under the guidance of Sister Magdalen, she entered a singing competition in Hamilton, soaring through the song, Have You Seen But A White Lily Grow. "It dawned on me at this age of about 13 that I could sing. Everybody said I had a big voice. I won the competition and it was at that moment I realised all these things people had said about me were true ."They always talked about the timbre of the voice being rich; a stronger and fuller sound," says Dame Malvina, almost as if she is speaking of someone else.

After a year with Malvina, Sister Magdalen became ill. In her place, Sister Febronie taught Malvina singing and Sister Liguori took over the piano tuition. For three years she learnt under the guidance of these women. "Sister Febronie taught me an enormous amount about singing properly."

But when Malvina was 16, the sister made a big mistake. "She entered me in the Waikato Aria Competition and the song that she gave me to sing was from La Traviata. I sang in English, not Italian. Eric Bell, the pianist, stopped me. He stopped me because I was not trained properly. Sister had been tremendous, but the training of a voice needed to start when I was 17 and I shouldn't have been given an aria like Traviata until I was about 21."

This ‘mistake’ affected Dame Malvina's career. For years she felt incapable of singing the aria. "I was offered it (La Traviata) three times in my career and I was well into my 40s when I finally accepted." But there were positive outcomes from that early bad call by Sister Febronie.

"Nothing happens without a meaning," Dame Malvina says.

As a result, the future of her singing tuition was reassessed and she was sent to Dame Sister Mary Leo at St Mary's College Music School in Ponsonby. Every Friday the 17-year-old Malvina began travelling to Auckland for her weekly lesson, with the woman regarded as New Zealand's greatest-ever singing teacher.

"Sister Leo was a lovely, lovely lady. She was like a second mother. She was a mentor as well as a teacher. She always talked to me about the week. She got rid of all the rubbish that was going on in a teenager's head before starting the lesson. She counselled."

Dame Malvina believes her teacher's approach showed great wisdom, but when the lesson began the nun's demeanour changed. "She was a tyrant," the singer smiles. But the sister was generous with her time and made astute decisions. For the first year, the young woman was not allowed to perform or enter competitions. When she did, Malvina was ready.

In 1963, she won the New Zealand Mobil Song Quest. Runner-up was one of her closest friends, a young Kiri Te Kanawa. Two years later came the Melbourne Sun Aria competition in Australia. Malvina was No 66 on stage, where she gave a powerful performance of Mozart's Non Mi Dir from Don Giovanni.

In the wings, Sister Leo hugged her in recognition of a job well done. Malvina won the prestigious competition and a brilliant future in opera opened before her. But there were two hurdles to face first - the course of true love and what study path to take.

For years, Eva Major cooked for farmworkers, including a young Taranaki man called Winston Fleming. He had moved to the Waikato to learn the art of cheese making at the Te Kōwhai Dairy Factory and used to eat daily at the Major farmstead.

Five months before the Melbourne victory Winston asked Eva if he could take 21-year-old Malvina to a dance. Eva agreed, but when he asked if they could go without a chaperone, the feisty mother hit the roof and ordered Winston out of the house. She told him nobody was going to stand in the way of her daughter's musical career, and he was not to go near her.
But nothing can stand in the way of true love, and on 16 January 1965 Malvina and Winston were married at the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary in central Hamilton.

Eva refused to attend the wedding and Vincent, in loyalty to his wife, also stayed away. After many years, Eva finally accepted that Winston was a good husband to her daughter.

Another decision had also been made at the start of that year. Malvina had decided to study at the London Opera Centre under the guidance of renowned teacher Ruth Packer. "I was there for not quite two years," Malvina remembers. "I was singing in the Camden Town Festival and I was invited to sing at the Salzburg Festival as Rosina in the Barber of Seville. That was really the launch of my career, and I was invited back the next year as well. That was '68 and '69."

Although Malvina was poised on the edge of a huge international career, farming and family pulled her and Winston back to New Zealand. "I was under an enormous amount of stress performing all around the world," she says. "We had Andrew born in London and we wanted more children. I remember being told I wouldn't have any more. Winston was unsettled; we lived such separate lives. We both realised we needed a more stable family life and if we were to have more children, we would have to do that in New Zealand."

In the early 1970s, the small family settled on a farm at Pīhama on Coastal Taranaki, near Opunake. Back on home turf, Malvina was employed by the New Zealand Opera Company to perform again as Rosina and also as Margurite in Faust. "During the tour of Rosina I found myself pregnant with Alethea."

Then 15 months later Lorraine was born. For Malvina that was it - her singing career was over and she decided to be content as a farmer, wife and mother. "I didn't have any intention of going back to singing. In my mind I had given up any intention of having an international career."

Those in the know had other ideas. Every time an overseas conductor came to New Zealand, they always asked where she was. The answer was always the same: "She's still up country with her gumboots on." So, on request, she kept singing around New Zealand.

Then John Gray from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra began talking about Malvina performing overseas again. With Winston's support, she was back singing in Europe by 1986. "I was astounded that people remembered me and that I didn't have to do much to get back on track."

In 1990, the Taranaki farmer's wife reached the pinnacle of her career, but her mentor was not there to see her, or even catch the reviews. Dame Sister Mary Leo died in Auckland on 5 May 1989. For Malvina, the best and the worst were thrown at her the following year.

In 1990, to mark 150 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, a New Zealand gala was booked to perform at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Among the invited singers were two Kiwi divas - good friends Dame Kiri and Malvina. Kiri took the part of Donna Elvira and Malvina sang Donna Anna in Mozart's sextet from Don Giovanni. Malvina also sang one of Lucia di Lammermoor's two big numbers, the seven-minute Regnava nel silenzio. "I felt like I had gone on to that stage with the right attitude and sang the best I could possibly sing."

Malvina did more than just fill that huge house with her big voice - she impressed the opera company's hierarchy. Two months later, Malvina was invited to replace Dame Joan Sutherland at Covent Garden. She was contracted to sing Rosalinde in the final two performances of Die Fledermaus on 9 and 12 January 1991.

But before triumph came tragedy. On the morning of 10 September 1990, Winston suffered a heart attack. He had limped back from the milking shed coughing blood and complaining about severe pains in his chest. Malvina called the doctor and put him to bed.

Her biography details how she looked after him: "She got water and some painkillers, but he could not take them. She put her arms around him for support. 'I love you...,' he started to say. 'I love you too.' Malvina moved to straighten the bed, glancing back at him as she did so. Suddenly he looked different. 'I knew he was gone. He was dead. I tried to ease him upright. There was no heartbeat'."

Although she maintained her composure during the wake and funeral service, Dame Malvina reveals she felt terribly lost. She sits back in her garden chair, turning away from the quizzer. "You lose ground for a couple of years. You are like a rudderless ship; you go round and round in circles. You cannot get your life together, but because I was already contracted to do things it forced me to keep going."

Less than three months later, Malvina was due to perform as Rosalinde at Covent Garden. "I had in my mind I should cancel. I was in a complete dilemma - I was just a mess. The voice had gone."

Conductor Richard Bonynge, who was also Joan Sutherland's husband, came to the rescue. "He saw that I was distressed and he immediately said, 'I want you to learn Csardas in Hungarian'. He got the copy, the music, the words, the tape and sent me home at the weekend to learn it. I was so concentrated on learning that - my mind had to be occupied - and it helped get me through that part (as Rosalinde)."

Her performance at Covent Garden was praised by critics and Malvina just kept sailing on, taking every opera opportunity that came her way. "In a way I think I felt that I needed to make up for lost time, but you can't make up for lost time. There was a sudden urgency to do things that I had thought about over the years but had never done. Like singing everywhere."

In 1991, she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire.

The following year, with the help of the New Plymouth West Rotary Club, the Dame Malvina Major Foundation was launched at Premier House. The foundation supports up-and-coming singers chosen for a programme with an exceptionally long title - the National Business Review NZ Opera PricewaterhouseCoopers Emerging Artist Programme.

"We select anything from two to five of New Zealand's best young potential opera singers every year. We give them a fairly intensive, but not yet perfect, year with the opera company, doing under-study roles and sometimes minor parts, touring and lots of performances, lessons from me and coaching in languages and in stagecraft," says the diva, who now lives in Christchurch.

The course of study also follows another line of Dame Malvina's thinking - if you have a special talent, you should use it. This is dear to her heart, considering her past decisions to forfeit singing for farming. Also, there have been moments in her life, flashes of realisation that have confirmed her God-given duty to sing.

One was performing at the Alan Smythe's Symphony Under The Stars in the Auckland Domain to 250,000 people. "Suddenly you realise, as you walk out on stage and all these people stand up and clap, that there's such a longing for these people (performers) and they (the audience) crave for what you've got. You really have a responsibility to keep performing, as long as you are singing well."

Another time, Dame Malvina heard about a seriously ill woman who was helped by her singing. "She had played my recordings every morning for months and months and she had grown well again."

In March 2002, she sang Opera at the Bay in South Australia. In a diversion from opera etiquette, environmentalist Tom Brinkworth chose her concert repertoire - 10 songs from her CD Casta Diva. At first she baulked at the idea, saying she no longer performed those pieces. In turn she was told: "You don't understand..."

Now she does, and why she must continue singing. It's because of Tom. "This man, this conservationist, he has spent years working on the restoration of the wetlands in South Australia." While his enthusiasm for the project didn't wane, his body did and he had heart attacks and a series of strokes. "Somebody gave him my recording of Casta Diva and it was played to him every day and when he came through that he said, 'Do you think that lady would come and sing at the opening of the wetlands?'"She did. First-hand, she learnt what her voice meant to this warrior of the wetlands. His comment was 'You can't die when you hear such beautiful music'."

 Dame Malvina smiles gently. "You see - there's a reason why you keep going."