Gone, but definitely not forgotten…
Past Productions
Season: 9 March, 2024
Prince Orlofsky’s Masquerade Ball - Die Fledermaus (Abridged)
Dress in your finest black-tie, don your favourite mask, and join Toi Toi Opera in The Great Hall for fun and frivolity at Prince Orlofsky’s masquerade ball. The music is sumptuous, the costumes are lavish, and you need to prepare yourselves – for anything could happen!
This abridged version of perennial favourite Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss II is brought to you by our stunning all-local cast and creative team, and it promises to be an evening that you will never forget.
Directed by Margot Button & Julian Anderson, with Musical Direction by Jeremy Woodside.
A fully-staged production.
Venue: The Great Hall, The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora - SOLD OUT.
Sarah-Jane Rennie (as Rosalinde), Frances Campbell (as Adele), and Andrew Grenon (as Eisenstein) in Die Fledermaus - March 2024. Photograph © Peter Moore for Toi Toi Opera
Season: 9 March, 2024
The Three Little Pigs
Toi Toi Opera brings you an operatic version of the story of The Three Little Pigs by John Davies, based on the music of W. A. Mozart.
While brother pigs Don Giovanni and Cherubino set off to make homes of sticks and straw, their sister, Despina, goes to the library to read up on ‘huff-proof, puff-proof’ home construction. After Wolfgang Bigbad blows down the boys’ flimsy homes, they run to their sister’s sturdy new brick house quite ready to admit that going to the library and reading books is a pretty smart thing to do after all!
Guaranteed to cause fits of giggles – bring your little (and not so little) ones and enjoy this free outdoor performance in the North Quad!
A fully-staged production.
Venue: North Quad, The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora; or in the event of wet weather, The Great Hall. 
Nicole Davey (as Cherubino Pig), Yumeka Hildreth (as Despina Pig), Lucca Ballara (as Don Giovanni Pig), & Thomas Woodfield (as Wolfgang Bigbad) in The Three Little Pigs - March 2024. Photograph © Peter Moore for Toi Toi Opera
Season: 28 January, 2024
Goldie B. Locks & the Three Singing Bears
Toi Toi Opera kicks off your new year with an operatic telling of the story of Goldilocks by John Davies, based on the music of W. A. Mozart and J. Offenbach.
Goldie B. Locks doesn’t just like bugs – she loves them! When a beautiful butterfly flutters off into the woods, she chases it, forgetting a promise made to her mum to stay close to home. Ending up lost and alone, Goldie B’s story unfolds much like the traditional Goldilocks, but with one important difference – she befriends The Three Bears, and learns that honesty is always the best choice – even for a sneaky soup robber.
Bring your baby bears to the North Quad for a heart-warming introduction to opera – and even better, it’s free!
A fully-staged production.
Venue: North Quad, The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora; or in the event of wet weather, The Great Hall. 
Matilda Wickbom (as Goldie) with her pet tarantula in Goldie B. Locks & the Three Singing Bears - January 2024. Photograph © Peter Moore for Toi Toi Opera
Season: 17 December, 2023
A Christmas Carol
Just in time for Christmas, Toi Toi Opera brings you an abridged version of renowned Ōtautahi composer Philip Norman’s operatic telling of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, with an all-local cast and creative team. Follow Scrooge as he is visited by a series of ghosts on Christmas Eve, who show him the bitterness of his ways, and the fate that will befall him should he not find redemption.
A light-hearted musical extravaganza, performed outdoors in the North Quad – free festive fun for the whole family.
Directed by Margot Button, with Musical Direction by Jeremy Woodside.
A fully-staged production.
Venue: North Quad, The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora; or in the event of wet weather, The Great Hall. 
Warwick Shillito as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol - December 2023. Photograph © Peter Moore for Toi Toi Opera
Date: 4 March, 2023
Opera Scenes by Toi Toi Opera - Off Centre Festival
Headlined by soprano Sarah-Jane Rennie and tenor Andrew Grenon, our singers will take you on an immersive journey through some of opera's best-known and best-loved highlights.
Off Centre, an arts festival bursting with music, comedy, theatre, food, a market, and vibrant entertainment to celebrate The Arts Centre's glorious restoration. Off Centre showcases more than 50 events with over 250 artists performing across 3-5 March 2023.
Venue: North Quad, The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora 
Frances Campbell (as Baby Doe) in Opera Scenes by Toi Toi Opera - March 2023. Photograph © Charlie Rose Creative for The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora
Season: 19, 20, & 21 August, 2022
A Barber & Bernstein Double Bill
Toi Toi Opera is fast establishing a reputation as NZ's most exciting and innovative pint-sized opera company. Join us in August at The Piano: Centre for Music and the Arts, as we present Leonard Bernstein's one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti (in its 70th Anniversary year), and two works by Samuel Barber - the one-act opera A Hand of Bridge, and Knoxville: Summer of 1915 for solo soprano.
The pieces are musically and dramatically complementary, providing an intimate and moving insight into the lived reality of middle-class American suburban life in the 20th century, and of just how far short it fell for many of the 'American dream' that they had been sold. In each instance, the audience is invited to delve underneath a picture-perfect cookie-cutter façade, as the protagonists grapple with their feelings of loneliness, emptiness and isolation, and question the meaningfulness of lives dedicated to the pursuit of 'more' and 'better'.
Sexy, poignant, funny, and oh-so-relatable! This sparkling new production, designed by Christy Lassen, and with sumptuous costuming by Tina Hutchison-Thomas, will transport you back to the Golden Age of the 1950s.
Directed by Matthew Kereama, with Musical Direction by Rachel Fuller, the production stars some of New Zealand's finest young operatic talent.
A fully-staged production, sung in English, with chamber orchestra.
Venue: The Piano: Centre for Music and the Arts - Pīpīwharauroa: Kui-kui whitiwhiti ora
Matilda Wickbom (as Dinah) in Trouble in Tahiti - August 2022. Photograph © Karyn Taylor-Moore for Toi Toi Opera
Season: 19, 20, & 21 February, 2021
Suor Angelica & Elegies
In this compelling new production, Toi Toi Opera’s creative team led by director Sara Brodie and production designer Mark McEntyre, stages Puccini’s one act opera Suor Angelica, written for an all female cast, amid the horrors of a makeshift hospital in World War One. The plot, unfolding in one day amid the mayhem of the suffering of the soldiers, adapts well to the self-sacrifice of nurses in war time.
The drama begins with a request by an infirmary nurse for Sister Angelica, known for her expertise in chemistry, to make one of her herbal potions. The pair are interrupted by the news that a member of Sister Angelica’s family (from which she has been banished), has come to see her.
Soon after, when Sister Angelica learns that she must sign away her inheritance so that her sister can marry and, worse still, that her illegitimate son has died, Puccini gifts us one of his greatest operatic moments, the aria ‘Senza Mamma’. As the opera nears its conclusion Sister Angelica, distraught and betrayed, signs away her inheritance and commits suicide. She ends the opera with a prayer for mercy. The prayer, answered by Mother Mary, brings the opera full circle from the poison of betrayal, through to the power of forgiveness.
With musical and dramatic hints of Puccini’s masterpiece Madama Butterfly, Suor Angelica is an opera not to be missed. This production, starring Sarah-Jane Rennie as Sister Angelica and Leisa Falconer as The Princess, will showcase some of Waitaha Canterbury’s finest operatic and dramatic talent. The opera will be complemented by Elegies - staged scenes featuring the music of Britten, Butterworth, and Vaughan Williams - following the soldiers’ wartime journey, and that of the women left behind on the home front, all under the baton of maestro Mark Hodgkinson.
A fully-staged production sung in Italian and in English, with chamber orchestra.
Venue: The Great Hall, The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora
Sarah-Jane Rennie (as Sister Angelica) & Leisa Falconer (as The Princess) in Suor Angelica & Elegies - February 2021. Photograph © Karyn Taylor-Moore for Toi Toi Opera
Date: 30 January, 2021
Toi Toi Opera - Official Launch
Join us, and our remarkable patron Patrick Power ONZM, as we celebrate the creation of Toi Toi Opera. The evening will feature more from us about our intentions for the company, a sneak peek into Suor Angelica & Elegies from our inaugural production director Sara Brodie, and performances from some of Ōtautahi Christchurch’s wonderful operatic talent, including Sarah-Jane Rennie, our beautiful Suor Angelica.
Venue: The Piano: Centre for Music and the Arts - Pīpīwharauroa: Kui-kui whitiwhiti ora
Photo: Sara Brodie and Patrick Power cut Toi Toi Opera’s inaugural season cake (designed and baked by Fiona Taylor) at Toi Toi Opera’s Official Launch - January 2021. Photograph © Wei Li Jiang for Toi Toi Opera