Past Performances

A HISTORY OF VARIETY

Travelling companies featured on the Opera House programme from opening night when the Bland Holt company performed “Sporting Life” and “The White Heather” as the inaugural performances. While there is a full description of “Sporting Life” in the early records, “The White Heather” is noted in the list of shows produced at the Opera House.

In the first year other touring companies followed including Pollard’s Opera Company with a series of opera, including “The Geisha”, “The Gay Parisienne”, “La Poupee and The Doll”. Other touring companies that year included Henry’s Dramatic & Comedy Company with plays such as “Charley’s Aunt”, “The Flying Scud”, and “Soldiers of the Queen”; the Douglas Ancelon Dramatic Company with “The Christian” and “Othello”; J C Williamson Dramatic Company with “The Sign of the Cross”; and “The King’s Musketeer”; Fuller’s Vaudeville Mammoth Speciality Company with a concert; the “Deaf and Dumb Entertainers”; and the Waihi Brass Band with “Under the Red Cross.”

The Trinity Wesleyan Choir performed the Opera House’s first musical, “The Haymakers”, on 16 February, 1900 and soon after that the Wanganui community had a chance to see friends and colleagues perform in a grand complimentary benefit concert on 26 April. Other concerts were performed from 4 June and every following Thursday  by the Wanganui Entertainment Syndicate. The first Wanganui Amateur Musical & Dramatic Company production was “The Mikado” on 14 August, 1900.

At least three films were screened in that opening year, the first probably being “The Boer War” screened on 11 May, by the Edison Kinematograph Co, followed on June 25 by Montgomery’s Kinematograph & Concert Co screening of  “The Transvaal War.” On 2^nd October, 1902, Cooper & MacDermatt’s Imperial Biograph screened “King’s Coronation.”

In the years that followed touring companies continued to entertain Wanganui audiences. In addition to those that visited the first year were John Sheridan, Pollards’ Merry Midget Co, Ada Delroy Co, Hautrey Comedy Co, Dix’s Gaiety Co, Najeroni’s Dramatic Co, William Anderson Dramatic Co,  J C Williamson Royal Comic Opera Co, J C Williamson New Comedy Co, Tait Comedy Co, Williamson Tait Dramatic Co, and a host of others bringing comedy, drama, dance, vaudeville, song, wrestling, revues, boxing, and movies to the citizens of Wanganui.  Hypnotists and illusionists entertained as did , ballet dancers and symphony orchestras, and the Vienna Boys Choir.

Local performances included benefit concerts, Wanganui Musical and Dramatic Association productions, Wanganui Liedertafel (to become the Male Voice Choir), the Wanganui Orchestral Club and  possibly the St Mary’s Dramatic Club. By 1936 the Wanganui Highland Pipe Band held its music week finals in the Opera House, public meetings were recorded, In 1938 the Wanganui Intermediate School celebrated a Festival of Music and Choral Speaking, the Wanganui Boys’ Choir created “A Feast of Music” and the Wanganui Returned Soldiers Association played “The Old Brigade”.

Wrestling became popular and the big national names like Lofty Blomfield wrestled with Dick Raines in 1938 and Earl McCready met Jack Claybourne in 1946. Lofty returned in 1948 to tangle with Pat Fraley, Len Levy and Joe Pazandak while Jack Claybourne tangled the same year with Marvin Jones. Later Al Costello wrestled with a variety of partners. In 1957 there was a wrestling show held in association with a Mr Wanganui Contest.

By 1940 local dance schools were recorded as using the Opera House for performances, while primary and secondary schools participated in patriotic concerts, raising funds for military personnel overseas.

 On 16 September, 1940, John A Lee, then MP for Grey Lynn, made a political address, and on 1 April, 1942 the RNZAF Band gave a concert. Other military entertainment groups and the Kiwi Concert Party  also performed while movies also played on evenings when the Opera House was not booked for other events. In 1947 the Wanganui Ladies Choir and the Male Choir joined forces to present “Dido and Aeneas” and in 1949 Mr Rooklyn brought his skills to the stage as illusionist and manipulator.

1950 saw Guide Rangi and the Arawa Concert Party on stage and the last movie on approximately 23 October, 1950 due to the opening of the Embassy Theatre. In 1951 the RSA Little Theatre gave an Anzac Concert  and performed “Dear Ruth”. In 1952 the Opera House was the venue for a “Big Quiz Show”, a grand variety concert, Wanganui Repertory playing “Quiet Weekend”, Wanganui Amdram playing “The Desert Song”, Lyn Philp and Bob Goolin boxing, Yi Kwei Sze, a Chinese Bass Baritone singing, and the Wanganui Competitions being held. Later it became a venue for school prize-givings. 

It remains the venue for Wanganui Intermediate School prize-givings, school choral performances, and a variety of performing arts, including community and touring shows, ballets, orchestral concerts and plays.

New Zealand shows have included Selwyn Toogood with “Lux Money Go Round” and “It’s In the Bag” in 1953,  the New Zealand Players with “The Love of Four Colonels”, pianist Colin Horsley in 1955, in 1959 Joe Brown’s “Search For Stars”, the New Zealand Opera Co and “La Traviata” in 1960. The New Zealand Ballet Co with the Bolshoi Dancers in 1961,  and in 1964 Joe Brown’s Miss New Zealand 1964.

Folk singer Michael O’Duffy , Negro baritone Todd Duncan concert pianist Shura Cherkassy and the Whaka Maori Concert Party all entertained during 1961. In 1962 the Fijian Girl Entertainers, the French Boys Choir, international tag wrestling with New Zealand vs Poland, Inia Te Wiata, the New Zealand Ballet Company, Spanish Dancers and the Wanganui Boxing Championships could all be viewed in the Opera House, and so the variety continued. Nina and Frederick sang here in 1966,

Bride of the Year Contests were held, the Maori Volcanics, Kamahl, Rolf Harris, The Peddlers, Julie Felix, The Seekers, and Fred Dagg all had the audience engrossed

By the 1980s shows like Ipi Tombi were being booked, as were a continuing range of local productions, floral demonstrations, a body building contest, the Prince Tui Teka Concert, Youth for Christ Rallies, charity concerts and into the 1990s international pianists, and the New Zealand Opera Training School.

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From the year of its opening, the Opera House played host to international opera performers. Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” is recorded as the first locally staged opera in 1900.

That year Pollard’s Opera Company staged 11 different shows and 8 more in 1901. In 1915 the Maori Opera Company raised 14 pounds for “native troops” as part of the patriotic fund raising of the day

Eighty years later, in 1995 Wanganui mounted a differently demanding opera project. With the enthusiasm and knowledge of  opera singer Leonie Symes and other interested people, and the support of the Wanganui Business Development Board, Opera Wanganui was born.

Their first locally produced and performed operas were Puccini’s comic opera, “Gianni Schicchi”  and Mascagni’s dramatic opera, “Cavalleria Rusticana,” born as an event to celebrate the Wanganui Music Society’s Golden Jubilee. Miss Symes and Wanganui stage director, David Smiles, worked closely to bring the production together.

In 1996, in a first for Wanganui and making national operatic history, Opera Wanganui presented Verdi’s masterpiece, “Nabucco”, in its New Zealand premiere with Roger Wilson in the title role. Award-winning London-based Australian-born soprano Julie Dalton took the soprano lead of Abigail. Supported by a 43-strong Wanganui Regional Chorus, the opera featured the famous chorus of the Hebrew slaves and involved four of Wanganui’s brass instrument players.  The production was greeted with acclaim.

The Wanganui Opera Trust projects followed a successful Opera Summer Season in the city in January, 1995. The first New Zealand Opera Summer School was held at Wanganui Collegiate School where sixteen of New Zealand opera’s emerging stars received world class tutelage led by Madame Virginia Zeani, distinguished voice professor at Indiana University, USA. Director and driving force behind the summer school initiative was former Wanganui man, businessman and singer, Donald Trott, who coincidentally had conceived the idea of the opera school to run the same year as his colleague, Leonie Symes, planned to produce an opera in the city.

“La Traviata” was accompanied by Opera Wanganui’s Regional Orchestra, with costuming again by the greatly talented Sue Prescott and the Wanganui Polytechnic Fashion Textile and Design School. Theatre stalwarts Derick Matthews and Lynette Vallely worked together to design and produce those stage sets, with Derick building them, and Lynette working as scenic artist.