Opera star’s eerie legacy
In August 1964 a ghostly legend – with a New Zealand twist – sprang up near the seaside village of Cemaes on the north coast of Anglesey, in Wales.
It started during construction of the Wylfa nuclear power station, west of Cemaes Bay.
Irish night-shift workers, sinking a tunnel for the power plant, said they had seen a ‘‘ghostly lady’’ singing there in the dark. Spooked, they asked to be given a day shift, but the replacement night crew heard the singing too. Above ground, it was said other people saw a ghostly woman in a white evening dress drifting about the cliffs. Who, or what, was this apparition?
Investigations revealed that the tunnel passed right through the former site of a house, previously owned by a New Zealand opera singer and her husband. The house was sold and taken over by the RAF during World War II.
The singer’s name? Rosina Buckman.
Whether tall tale or happy haunting, the story revived the memory of a woman once known as ‘‘New Zealand’s Queen of Song’’, an international celebrity who spent part of her youth in and around Palmerston North.
Buckman was born in Blenheim on March 16, 1881. She was the second of eight children, and her parents, John and Henrietta Buckman, were excellent amateur singers and musicians. From early childhood, Buckman’s singing voice was exceptional, and her mother became her first vocal coach.
When she was seven, the family moved to Waikanae, where John Buckman, formerly a master builder, went into the flax trade.
In Waikanae, Buckman, aged 9, suffered a horrible accident when playing with other children – she fell and was heavily jumped on, resulting in internal injuries. A doctor declared she wouldn’t last the night; but the young Rosina survived, enduring eight months and four operations in Wellington Hospital.
From Waikanae the Buckman family moved to Foxton; when flax fibre prices dropped, they shifted to Otaki and then Palmerston North, where they lived in Fitzherbert Ave.
John Buckman next went into dairy farming at Apiti. Their farm was surrounded with bush, and Buckman liked to wander among the trees, practising her songs.
Author Miriam Mcgregor, in her book Petticoat Pioneers 2, writes: ‘‘A young man, hearing her voice, followed it to its source then stood listening as Rosina sang with the birds. Years later, when the same young man had become a member of Parliament, he went backstage in a London theatre and made himself known to her as the man who had listened to her in the bush.’’
As she grew older, Buckman took singing lessons in Palmerston North and her rich, mellow voice was heard regularly at St Paul’s Methodist church and in local concerts. Aged 18, she travelled to England for further musical tuition, escorted by the church organist James Grace and his wife. Two years of intensive study in Birmingham followed, but during a harsh winter she developed bronchial problems and returned to her family in New Zealand.
Next, Buckman toured the country in composer Alfred Hill’s smash-hit opera, A Moorish Maid. Hill is also said to have written Waiata Poi especially for her. In Australia, she studied further, and sang with J C Williamson’s light opera troupe and Dame Nellie Melba’s grand opera company (her sister, Clarice Buckman, a professional singer, also joined this company. She later became Mrs David Niven and settled in Palmerston North.)
Melba advised Buckman to go back to England and keep up her hard work. It paid off; in time Buckman rose to become a famous, popular opera star. Her biggest triumph and signature role was as Cio-cio San in Madame Butterfly, and from 1915 to 1920 she was leading soprano in Sir Thomas Beecham’s opera company. She was a pretty woman, large in build, with a warm-hearted personality and a fierce dedication to her profession.
In Buckman’s late 30s, after singing so many romantic roles, a real-life love story came her way. She married handsome halfFrench operatic tenor Maurice D’oisly, 37, in London on Christmas Eve, 1919. Because of her childhood accident, there could be no children.
In 1922, the couple boarded the ship Ionic, bound for an Australasian concert tour presented by theatrical impresario E J Gravestock. They were booked for a total of 110 concerts over several months, with supporting pianist and cellist. Buckman told reporters: ‘‘I am overjoyed at the prospect of coming to New Zealand and Australia.’’ Fans in her homeland were overjoyed to see her, too. In Wellington, ticket queues for her concerts started forming at 7am each day.
In Palmerston North, packed Opera House audiences listened rapturously to Buckman and D’oisly singing duets from Romeo and Juliet, La Boheme and Madame Butterfly as well as individual solos.
In 1930, Buckman retired from the stage and became a professor of singing at London’s Royal Academy of Music. She enjoyed mentoring young New Zealand singers, and her students sometimes gave concerts in Anglesey at the Cemaes village hall, near the comfortable Wylfa Head house where Buckman now lived with D’oisly and her mother-in-law. Locals described her as ‘‘very grand’’ in her long white concert dress, pekinese dog under one arm. D’oisly continued his own career, retiring in 1936 after a huge popular success as Franz Schubert in the light opera Lilac Time.
Buckman died in London on December 30, 1948; D’oisly lived for only six months afterwards.
Their story gradually faded from memory. Until the Anglesey summer of 1964.
In Palmerston North, UCOL’S performing arts programme is housed in the Buckman Building. Email: tinawhite29@gmail.com