User:Mmemaigret/SVnotes
Notes from book
[edit](sighted 1 Nov 2025)
Page 119
- full page photo
Page 120
- got his title of Kammersänger on 5 October 1987
- 22 years with the Volksoper
- played 70 roles in 2 decades
- born Hastings 29.11.1933
- joined the budding NZ Opera Company part time
- Gave up job as accountant in 1959
Page 121
- family moved to Palmy at the end of WWII
- attended Boys' High School
- 2 years at Otago
- Moved to Wgtn in 1954
- Studied accountancy
- In 1956, started taking [fuel/fuzl/final?] lessons with Donald Munro
- joined the company full time in 1959
Page 122
- finalist in the Mobil Song Quest 1959
- played Notary [sic] in 1960 in Donizetti's Don Pasquale. As a result, he met director Stefan Haag.
- Haag had been the director of the Vienna's Boy's Choir
- Haag recommended him for an understudy role of Diesel in Bernstein's West Side Story in Melbourne
- Relocated to Melbourne
- Ended up playing Tony because the singer who was supposed to be playing Tony was struggling with the part/vocals
- Played in West Side Story (Tony 7 times and Diesel, the remainder) for 6 months from November 1960-April 1961
Page 123 (nothing)
Page 124
- Moved to Europe on spec - vague plans to look for work in Munich (and further education/training)
- Arrived in Vienna in summer of 1966
- Sang for agent Rudi Raab, who took him on as a client (implied for the rest of his career)
- Original Volksoper contract for 2 years
- Had to learn to speak and sing in German
Page 125
- Unlike the State Opera, all of the Volksoper productions are in German
- Baillie took German classes meant for foreign students at a university
- His first performance was 13 words as a peasant in Moniuszko's Halka on 9.1.1967
- Could also accept outside engagements
- Studied under Anna Procenc (sp?), a Czech soprano and voice teacher.
Page 126
- [about his first year:] as his German improved, so did his parts
About the book
[edit]- Adrienne Simpson and Peter Downes
- Southern Voices: International Opera Singers of New Zealand.
- Reed Books, a division of Octopus Publishing Group NZ Ltd
- 1992, Auckland
- ISBN 978-0-7900-0225-5
- features 19 artists (1 chapter each), including 1 feature photo
- chapter on Bailie - pp 119-131