Exclusive interview with Dame Malvina Major, ONZ, GNZM, DBE

Dame Malvina Major. Photo Courtesy of Dame Malvina Major.

Dame Malvina Major chatted about her foundation, the Dame Malvina Major Foundation, and her illustrious career in the entertainment industry.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” A woman that embodies this wise quote is Dame Malvina Major.

An internationally recognized operatic soprano, Dame Malvina FaceTimed with this journalist from her home in Taranaki, New Zealand.

“I am in New Plymouth, which is halfway down the North Island,” she said. “We are getting a lot of good people coming to New Zealand and helping our young people.”

Dame Malvina opens up about her foundation

The Dame Malvina Major Foundation was established in 1991 to offer support to emerging New Zealanders in the performing arts.

“We started it in 1991 actually, and I can’t tell you the number of young people we’ve been through the foundation,” she said. “There are at least 18 New Zealanders that we’ve supported through the foundation over the years.”

“We have various committees around New Zealand, and we are in a constant state of improving and growing. This is being done here and it is basically to help students who find it very hard to leave New Zealand and to travel overseas and be alone away from their families,” she said.

“Our Polynesian men are just amazing,” she said. “They don’t know how good they are. They just open their mouths and the most amazing sounds come out.”

“When we did concerts to raise money for retirement villages through the foundation, I had a Harry Secombe song called “If I Can Help Somebody,” which was my theme song really, and I still sing it in the concerts I do today,” she said.  

Dame Malvina on her influences

“My opera voice was trained by a nun in Auckland, New Zealand, named Sister Mary Leo and Ruth Packer in  England,” she said. 

“Opera was not my first choice; if I had been given the chance I would have gone to Broadway,” she said. “I loved the song and dance films. Ethel Merman, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Julie Andrews. Song and dance.  Besides opera, I did sing in the inaugural New Zealand production of ‘The Sound of Music’ for the Hamilton Operatic Society.” 

“My voice was too big for microphone and suited grand opera better which is why I ended up singing opera,” she said. “I was also an actress, and had a good idea of languages.” 

“I did some of the operas in my 40s,” she disclosed. “I was already doing young girl roles in my 40s. That experience of finding it so difficult while I was living on my own gave me the idea to support the young New Zealanders coming through. They needed help, and they needed to know what it was like to go overseas and study.”

“I had a connection with the San Francisco Opera for a while, and now, we have a connection with Opera Australia,” she said.

“It has been pretty exciting for the new generation of operas singers,” she acknowledged.

Dame Malvina on Susan Fleet, MBE

Dama Malvina had great words about Susan Fleet, MBE, who was the PA (personal assistant) to the late but great Dame Vera Lynn.

“Susan is coming to New Zealand, and we will do something together,” Dame Malvina said. “Susan was a great friend and a PA to the late Dame Vera Lynn, and I was also friendly with Dame Vera Lynn, and I have done a few things for her foundation as well.”

Dame Malvina on the musical legacy of Dame Vera Lynn

“Dame Vera Lynn resonated with me because she sang the same music that I grew up with. I was born in 1943 at the end of World War II, and Vera Lynn’s songs were a part of our musical family background,” she said.

Dame Malvina continued, “We sang those songs, and we also sang country music. We yodeled both Australian yodeling and American yodeling. Johnny Cash was a great favorite of mine. My sisters and brothers and I all had a little band, and it was wonderful.”

“I was taught yodeling following Loretta Lynn and her music style and Slim Dusty, Patsy Cline, and Hank Williams,” she said. 

“While I grew up on country music, Dame Vera Lynn influenced that lovely, gentle, easy style of singing,” she added.

From Dame Vera Lynn’s musical catalog, Dame Malvina listed “The White Cliffs of Dover” and “We’ll Meet Again” as two of her personal favorite songs of hers.

“Dame Vera Lynn was the Sweetheart of the Forces,” Dame Malvina said. “I have always admired Dame Vera, and my father loved her. We will still sing her songs.”

Dame Malvina remembered that during the Coronavirus outbreak, Queen Elizabeth II invoked the words of Dame Vera’s song “We’ll Meet Again” as a symbol of hope for the British Empire during the conflict.

“We will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again,” Queen Elizabeth said in her then-speech back in 2020. “The Queen cited Dame Vera’s song,” Dame Malvina said.

Dame Malvina on the digital age of music

On being a part of the digital age of music, she said, “It is pretty daunting sometimes. I’ve done quite a bit of Zooming, actually. When I started working at the university, I became a fast learner of technology.”

Advice for young and emerging musicians

For young and aspiring musicians, she said, “First of all, you have to believe in yourself, and you need to have an instrument. You have to actually have a voice, you must believe in yourself, and you have to work hard.”

“In opera, you have to study languages. It is not just about the voice and the training of the voice, it’s about languages and being able to sing in any language that you are asked to sing in,” she said.

“A lot of opera is in German, French, or Italian. I’ve sung in Russian. It’s a hard life and it’s especially hard for women. There is still a stigma about a woman having a family and not being serious about her craft, and that is entirely wrong,” she noted.

“Every experience in life (good or bad), adds another color to your voice and your soul, really, and you can portray that when you are doing when you are doing characters on the stage,” she said.

“For young people, it is hard work, especially the ones in New Zealand,” she said. “We are a long way from the rest of the world. We don’t have Spain, Germany, or anything across the border to help us practice our languages. It is a difficult life; it is not life a pop singer.”

Dame Malvina on her family

She revealed that her name came from Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal secretary, Malvina Thompson. “My mum was looking for something unusual as I was numbe seven, and the fourth daughter,” she said.

“I have three children, and I am so lucky,” she revealed. “My first child was born in London when I was studying at the London Opera Centre. I also have two girls that were born in New Zealand later.”

“My son is Andrew, which is a Greek name that means strong,” she noted. “One of my daughters has an English name derived from Greek, Alethea, which means ‘Truth’ and a second name Helena which is also Greek.”

“My other daughter has my name, Malvina, a Scottish Gaelic name that means smooth brow,” she said. “My husband died at the age of 46 on the farm at Kina Road from a massive heart attack.” 

“I am writing a book about my life, and it is quite daunting and amazing,” she said. “I had 70 odd diaries, and I got completely overwhelmed by trying to sort the diaries and look at what I had done.”

“I found a lot of photographs and roles that I have done. Now, I am writing this book from a different angle,” she said.

Dame Malvina on her damehood

In the 1985 Queen’s Birthday Honours, she was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE), for her services to opera.

In 1991, she was invested to a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE), for services to opera, charity, and the community.

“I got that for my music and for my willingness to give back through charity,” she said. “We raised a lot of money through Rotary for PolioPlus, crippled children and for childhood cancer.”

“I got my damehood in 1991 after my husband died from a massive heart attack at the age of 46,” she said. “The other awards have followed since then.”

She was subsequently made a Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to opera, in the 2008 New Year Honours.

Following the restoration of titular honours by the New Zealand government, she accepted redesignation as a Dame Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009.

Stage of her life

On the title of the current chapter of her life, she said with a sweet laugh, “Old Age.”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “The current chapter is learning how to live without singing, really. I can still sing but not like I used to. I don’t think you should do that; you can’t keep going.”

“It is really sad to hear people singing when they can’t really sing anymore. I entertain people, and I sing for myself. I am not doing it the way I used to do it,” she said.

She was an Honorary Associate for the music program at the University of Waikato in Hamilton. Dame Malvina enjoys advising and mentoring young people.

Dame Malvina on success

On her definition of the word success, Dame Malvina said, “I think success has to do with your attitude towards life, your ability to communicate with people of all races, and to be able to live in your own skin. Also, to be happy that what you’ve done has been okay.”

“I am still trying to tell myself that I need to keep working,” she said. “I’ve found it very hard to not push myself to still do things for other people. Sometimes, it is difficult and it’s very hard.”

“You need to be happy with where you are, and you need to be happy with what you’ve done, and that’s still hard for me because I still feel like I need to be doing things, even if it is just teaching or working with young people,” she said.

“Retirement isn’t a word I like because I don’t know what it means,” she said with a sweet laugh.

Dame Malvina’s message for her fans and supporters

For her fans and supporters, Dame Malvina expressed, “Thank you for listening and thank you for being loyal. That has been amazing. Thank you for helping with the Dame Malvina Major Foundation. Their loyalty has been wonderful.”