Wellington Opera is an opera company based in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...

, New Zealand formed in 2020 by the Wellington Opera Trust, a charitable organisation, with funding and support from

Creative New Zealand The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (Creative New Zealand) is the national arts development agency of the New Zealand government, investing in artists and arts organisations, offering capability building programmes and developing markets ...

Wellington City Council Wellington City Council is a territorial authority in New Zealand, governing the country's capital city Wellington, and ''de facto'' second-largest city (if the commonly considered parts of Wellington, the Upper Hutt, Porirua, Lower Hutt and ...

and the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation.

History

The company's first staging was a production of Mozart's '' Don Giovanni'' in Wellington's

Opera House An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets. While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...

directed by Sara Brodie, in April 2021. The cast included New Zealand-born bass-baritone James Ioelu, Christian Thurston, and Amelia Berry, accompanied by

Orchestra Wellington Orchestra Wellington is New Zealand's oldest professional regional orchestra, based in the capital city of Wellington. It hosts an annual subscription series of concerts in the Michael Fowler Centre, performing varied repertoire from the Class ...

conducted by artistic director Matthew Ross. The performances were well attended and received positive reviews. The 2022 production of

Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...

's '' La traviata'' reopened Wellington's largest theatre, the

St James Theatre St. James Theatre is a Broadway theatre in New York City. St. James Theatre may also refer to: Australia * St. James Theatre, Sydney, multi-storey building in Elizabeth Street, not to be confused with diminutive St James' Hall, Sydney New Zeala ...

, after it was closed in 2018 for earthquake strengthening work after the

2016 Kaikōura earthquake The 2016 Kaikoura earthquake was a magnitude 7.8 (Mw) earthquake in the South Island of New Zealand that occurred two minutes after midnight on 14 November 2016 NZDT (11:02 on 13 November UTC). Ruptures occurred on multiple faults and the ...

. The opening night performance was somewhat hampered by

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

infections among the cast and crew, but was nonetheless received positively by the audience and reviewers.

References

New Zealand opera companies Musical groups from Wellington {{NewZealand-music-stub