After a four-year hiatus the Lexus Song Quest has returned to the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington with five budding opera singers battling it out for the title.
But only one could take the win and that was New Zealand-raised Tongan Filipe Manu. He’s a three-time finalist of the competition already that’s been running for 65 years now.
One of Manu’s mentors and one of New Zealand’s most celebrated singers, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, made a guest appearance at Saturday night’s gala, beaming with joy at Manu’s win as she rushed onto the stage to give him a hug.
“You’ve got to jump up and down and you’ve got to say it’s a relief, a terrific relief to have such success,” says Dame Kiri Te Kanawa who won the song quest herself back in 1965 and says Saturday night was “one of the most spectacular evenings” she’s seen for young singers.
“He was pinpointed fairly quickly as soon as they saw him in the colleges, so he’s one of the very special ones,” she says.
But Filipe says he got into opera purely by chance.
“I got into opera singing through my high school. They were offering free singing lessons and a friend of mine was taking these singing lessons and I thought it was a good way to get out of class,” he says.
He soon fell in love with the art he says, and the winning prize of $20,000 cash, a scholarship worth $27,000, plus $3000 in economy international travel, will help him take his career to the next level.
“We have language coaching, stagecraft we need to work on, our vocal technique, music, there’s so much that goes into creating an opera singer and maintaining this high level so that’s where this prize money is going towards,” says Manu.
In what’s known to be one of the most competitive fields, he’s already making a mark overseas as a tenor, currently residing in Switzerland where he is a member of the newly founded soloists ensemble of Stadttheater Bern.
“I didn’t think I’d be able to make a career, I lived in London for four years now living in Bern in Switzerland I didn’t even know where Bern in Switzerland was before, I sort of got the job offer there so it was a totally different world I didn’t even know it was possible,” he says.
Manu last year graced London’s iconic Covent Garden opera house in what was the first Tongan song to ever be performed there, and now next season he’ll be performing there as the lead role in Mozart’s Magic Flute.
“Marking the 20th anniversary of this iconic production and I think I’m the first-ever Tongan to perform at Covent Garden in London so that’s going to be pretty special, so will have to get the family out there and make a bit of noise.”
The Lexus Song Quest 2022’s runner-up Felicity Tomkins won a cash prize of $10,000, and a scholarship worth $10,000. An additional $15,000 scholarship was awarded by the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation to Emmanuel Fonoti-Fuimaono, a prize for the singer who showed exceptional potential.
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