Malvina Major
Dame Malvina was to have sung at 3pm on Sunday in the Hutton Theatre.
She was also to have sung at 7.30pm on Monday in the Waitaki Boys' High School auditorium.
Funds raised were to be used to support young Otago musicians.
"It's a real shame, but she has fallen ill and it was too late to cancel the concerts," Dame Malvina Major Foundation Otago branch president Judy Bellingham said last night.
"She's not too ill. It's just exhaustion, I think, which can happen when we get a bit older."
However, the show would go on, Miss Bellingham said.
"Dame Malvina has personally picked her replacement, Amelia Berry, who won the $23,000 New Zealand Aria in Rotorua last weekend."
Berry also won the 2008 Otago Daily Times Aria.
