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This was the first of three community performances of Noye’s Fludde to be put on by New Zealand Opera this month to celebrate this year’s Britten centenary. Britten wrote this work to be performed predominantly by a cast of amateurs with professional singers filling the roles of Noah, his wife and as the voice of God.

Sometimes in a performance there is a moment when everything just comes together; when every element on stage is operating at such a high level that the performance transcends these elements and causes one to become so immersed in the proceedings that you forget you’re at a performance at all.

The Bartered Bride, premiered in 1866, is considered to be Smetana’s masterpiece in the operatic genre and is widely regarded as the national opera of the Czech Republic. Despite this, for their second and last production this year, New Zealand Opera elected to perform the opera in English translation rather than the original Czech, aiming to speak to their audiences in a more direct fashion.