Artist Profile
Helen Medlyn
Helen Medlyn stars in Southern Opera's latest touring production: "Time Pieces".
Helen was born in Falmouth, Cornwall to John and Irene. Her grandparents, Vic and Bea, were repertory theatre performers and Helen credits her grandfather – a great raconteur, actor, comedian, singer and musician – for the genes that make her the all-round performer she is today.
At one time or another, Helen has been a jazz chanteuse, a dancer, an actress, a musical theatre performer, a narrator, a comedienne, a classical concert singer, a voice-over artiste, an opera diva and a cabaret entertainer...sometimes, all in the same performance!
Helen and her family came to New Zealand on the aging ship, the “Rangitata”. On board Helen got the measles, but got well enough to enter and win a fancy dress contest as Puss in Boots. She was three.
The Medlyns settled at the foot of Mount Taranaki, but after a year, went to Auckland, settling in Henderson Valley, West Auckland and staying for 30-odd years.
Helen went to a country school, played one of the wise men in the school nativity play but was harrumphy because she wanted to play Mary, and she won boxes of chocolates singing in school talent quests; she picked fruit at a local orchard for pocket money, rode horses and was good at Geography and English.
Helen got a ‘real job’ when she left school at 17, working in various offices, service industries and advertising agencies until 1989, when she decided to make a go of a career in performance. She left her job as television producer at Saatchi and Saatchi and became a company member of the Mercury Theatre in Auckland, where she remained until its closure in 1992.
Helen has no home base, so has lived out of a suitcase for more years than she cares to remember, but there’s always room in her bag for things that give her joy – a book to read, a book to write poetry and her aging SLR Canon to take landscape photographs.
Helen is mad on Harley Davidsons – putting her hand up if any of her Harley friends ask if she’d like a ride! – and she has a penchant for helicopters, trains, V8 cars and big Mack trucks. Her love of big loud machines has something to do with being a “Westie Chick”, she reckons; learning to drive in her Dad’s Ford Falcon Pursuit and her boyfriend’s Valiant AP5 probably did it!
Helen’s had the most wonderful lifetime in the theatre. Starting at the age of eight, playing a pirate in her Mum’s production of “Pirates of Penzance” (perfect start for a girl from Cornwall!), she’s done an array of things including playing one of the Ugly Sisters in the pantomime, “Cinderella”; portraying Joy Gresham in the play, “Shadowlands”; taking the role of Mary Magdalene in the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar”; being the mezzo soloist in Verdi’s majestic “Requiem”; steaming up a few spectacles while slithering over a grand piano, bosoms akimbo in her cabaret performances; and singing the roles of Rhinemaiden and Valkyrie in Wagner’s four-opera epic “The Ring Cycle”.
She’s appeared throughout New Zealand and Australia, and performed in Malaysia, Japan, America and Britain, presenting works from an eclectic mix of composers including Mahler, Gillian Whitehead, Billy Strayhorn, Handel and Stephen Sondheim. Some of the amazing people with whom Helen has considered herself fortunate to have worked are conductors Jeffrey Tate, Richard Hickox, Stephen Barlow; singers Anthony Warlow, Dame Malvina Major, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa; actors George Henare, Rima Te Wiata, Ross Duncan; and directors Raymond Hawthorne, Gale Edwards, Lindy Hume.
Not bad for a butcher’s daughter!
Helen Medlyn has appeared in: