Classic opera and popera collide
Twilight Opera in the Garden is returning for its fifth year, featuring a superb programme. On Sunday, performers will deliver a mix of the most musical favourites of classic opera and big voice standouts from modern shows, often described as popera. There’ll be something for everyone at this year’s show.
Taking place at picturesque Springpointer Garden, the opera attracts around 500 visitors. It’s put on by Arrowtown Creative Arts Society (ACAS), who started six years ago after recognising the large amount of creative people living in the Arrowtown area, who were lacking anything to pull them together. The event is put on in conjunction with Auckland Opera Studio.
“They have a couple of opera veterans there, whose job it is to spot the really up-and-coming talent in New Zealand opera, helping them with training and making contacts for them, and just moving them ahead,” one of the event organisers, John Lapsley, says. “We’ll have seven singers and an accompanist. What’s typical of the singers is that they’ll be in their 20s and they’ve been picked for this. They’ll do another outdoor opera outside Auckland at a place called Matakana.”
It's an exciting thing for a performer to be chosen to take part – getting to travel and perform in two beautiful spots in Aotearoa. The performers this year are sopranos Amelia Berry, Katherine Winitana, and Sarah Mileham; tenors Ridge Ponini and Emmanuel Fonoti-Fuimaono, Alfred Fonoti-Fuimaono (baritone), Joel Amosa (bass), and Somi Kim (piano accompanist).
Mileham did her undergraduate at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington under one of the county’s best-known sopranos, Jenny Wollerman. She then move to Hamilton to do her honours, and going forward this year, she’s part of TANZOS, the master’s programme at Waikato. Last year she debuted on the mainstage, performing in Rigoletto, before touring around schools, now she’s excited to be coming to Tāhuna, Queenstown.
“I just always loved music growing up,” Mileham says. “I used to do jazz bands, choir, the school musicals, anything I could get my hands on. I knew that I wanted to do something within the arts my whole life. I went to university doing a classical performance paper, because I thought I could figure it out when I get there.
“I ended up going to see my first opera in my first year, which was 2021, and it was New Zealand Opera’s The Marriage of Figaro, and I got to watch the dress rehearsal before Covid shut down the show – so lucky. That was the moment where I was like ‘this is so incredible, it combines everything I love about the arts – the acting, the storytelling, the music,’ and from that moment I thought that this is the only thing I want to do.”
Mileham is looking forward to exploring Queenstown before and after the show, and is delighted to be sharing the stage with people such as Amelia Berry, who’s worked extensively in New Zealand and abroad. There’s a good scope among the performers, who are all at different stages of their careers.
Some of the songs that will make up the programme include the delicate intertwining of the Flower Duet from Delibe’s Lakeme, and the powerful tenor baritone emotion of The Pearlfishers’ Duet. There’s also modern songs including Popular from Wicked and At Last, which Beyonce restored as a major hit 80 years after its movie debut. Mileham explains that if you’ve been hesitant to get into opera, this is the perfect concert for you.
“The repertoire that we bring is very formulated for somebody that maybe has a little bit of curiosity, but they’re not quite sure. We’ll bring the absolute favourites and the very popular stuff, so it’ll be easy to digest – we’ll probably spark curiosity. We also have a lot of musical theatre repertoire and we also have a lot of popular music, too. The whole programme is very friendly for everyone and we just snuck a bit of opera in there to maybe get some new people involved,” Mileham jokes.
Gates open at 4pm, Sunday, 9 February, at Springpointer Garden, 70 Lower Shotover Street for the Twilight Opera in the Gardens – you can bring refreshments and picnic hampers. Tickets, priced $75 for ACAS Members and $95 general admission (plus booking fees), and more info can be found at eventfinda.co.nz/2025/twilight-opera-in-the-garden/arrowtown and proceeds from the night will help to support Turn Up the Music Charitable Trust.
