Mozart's Don Giovanni As Narropera

Note, no narropera performance has an interval. Running time is 75 - 85 minutes depending on the chosen opera.

Please note that ticketing for The Narropera Trio's narropera performances in The Golden Room of Lansdown House is via the Court Theatre box office, via the theatre's internet or by phone (03) 963 0870. A direct link to the booking page can also be made via each of the performance dates on the Lansdown Narropera April 2019 web page.

This performance of 'Don Giovanni' as narropera is the first in The Narropera Trio's series of five April 2019 performances in The Golden Room of Lansdown House. A second performance of 'Don Giovanni' is on Friday, 12th April (6PM - 7.15PM). This revised narropera version of 'Don Giovanni' is new to New Zealanad audiences. On Easter Saturday, 20th April (7.30PM - 8.55PM), The Narropera Trio will present a brand new narropera of Mozart's 'The Marriage of Figaro', with repeat performances on Easter Monday, 22nd April (6PM to 7.25PM), and on Friday, 26th April (7.30PM to 8.55 PM).

The musical joy of Mozart's Don Giovanni (in a dozen musical pieces) threads through a detailed narrative of the opera's story in a fusion of chamber musical clarity and the art of story-telling, recently described by one German critic as 'a short-winded tale for grown-ups in which music and speech are finely balanced'.

In what is certainly one of the largest and most voluminous rooms in a private house on The South Island (seating capacity 100 and with a 4 metre ceiling height), The Narropera Trio of voice, violin and piano/narrator brings music and story mutually to life with wit and drama, in equal part. The 3-acres of Lansdown House and Gardens are a Canterbury gem, of historic and horticultural significance.

Escape into a European world of beauty, elegance and timelessness, ideal for the ambience of Mozart's 18th century. This will be the 81st narropera performance since the art-form's invention in 2013.

Though invented for Christchurch and its earthquake traumas, narropera is now an international phenomenon, with annual European tours (the feature image is from a recent narropera performance of Don Giovanni in the Kammermusiksaal of the Beethoven-House in Bonn, in Germany).

The three performers are internationally acclaimed German soprano, Dorothee Jansen; French violinist, Floriane Peycelon; and Cantabrian, Haydn Rawstron MNZM, pianist, author, musical arranger and narrator. Lansdown House and Gardens are owned by the John Robert Godley Memorial Trust (charitable), named in honour of the Founder of Canterbury.

The large farming estate of which Lansdown House and Gardens was once the epicentre, was first the property of William Guise Brittan and then the property of Sir Edward Stafford.

Brittan has the distinction of being the first person to buy land in the province of Canterbury and he named his country estate 'Lansdown' after Lansdown Tower in Bath (England). Stafford has the distinction of being the longest serving Prime Minister (Premier) in New Zealand's 19th century history. Irishman Stafford most probably added the 'e' to Lansdown, as a reference to one of the premier Irish peerages, the Earldom of Lansdowne. Both Brittan and Stafford were passionate and landscapers and their individual visions are still indelibly part of Lansdown(e).