NZ Opera is standing by its decision to produce a show based on the infamous unruly tourists who hit the headlines across the country for their antics back in 2019.
Three board members have resigned since the production was announced two weeks ago.
NZ Opera’s former head of music Lindy Tennent-Brown is one of those who questions the decision to stage the opera.
“I thought to myself if it was a group of people who were a black family or a Chinese family, would we be making an opera at their expense?” she says.
“I accept the opera is about the response of New Zealanders to this group of people, but it feels like a post-colonial stab in the back.”
NZO general director Thomas de Mallet Burgess previously described the opera would mainly be a comedy.
"Aside from the essential comedic value of the unruly tourists being hunted by the media and people of New Zealand ... there was also possibly a more serious theme about people coming from abroad and rampaging across the country."
Tennent-Brown left last year for similar reasons as the three recent board member resignations.
“If you question the artistic direction, you are seen as being part of the old guard, which is uniformly dismissed, and there is no room for interrogation of the artistic direction.”
Under the direction of de Mallet Burgess NZ Opera has been moving beyond tradition.
NZ Opera says it stands by its plans for an unruly tourist’s opera.
It says there's room for a range of work and is committed to evolving this centuries old art form.
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