Oscar Natzka
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Franz Oscar Natzka (born and sometimes credited as Natzke, 1912 – 1951) was a New Zealand operatic singer.
Natzka was born at Wharepuhunga, North Island, New Zealand, on June 15, 1912, the son of August Natzke, of Brixen, in a German-speaking part of Italy, who had emigrated to New Zealand and settled in the Otorohanga county, and Emma Carter Natzke, of Christchurch, New Zealand, a singer. As a boy, while Natzka worked on his father's farm, he was encouraged and trained as a singer by his mother. The family was displaced by the recession of the 1920s to Waiheke Island, where Oscar sang as a boy soprano in concerts. At the age of 15 he was apprenticed to a blacksmith at Freemans Bay, Auckland, where he worked for 3½ years; he later worked for a phosphate company.
When his voice broke, he became a basso profundo and soon became well-known. He was aided early in his career by Homer Samuels, husband of Amelita Galli-Curci, John Brownlee, the Australian baritone, and Anderson Tyrer, conductor of the New Zealand National Orchestra. In 1935 he went to London, England to study under Albert Garcia. In 1938, he made his debut with the Royal Covent Garden Opera, and went on to enjoy a career on the operatic circuit.
He appeared in the 1946 British musical motion picture Meet the Navy [1].
He married Winifred Jean Clements, of Auckland in 1941.
After collapsing a week earlier on stage during a performance of Die Meistersinger at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Natzka died on November 4, 1951 in New York.
His widow Winifred later married the Oscar-winning American actor Charles Coburn.[1]
