The Company

Hailed by The Press as 'a company to watch', Ōtautahi's own Toi Toi Opera is fast establishing a reputation as Aotearoa's most exciting and innovative pint-sized opera company.

Dedicated to presenting staged opera, Toi Toi Opera was founded in 2019 by three friends and fellow opera singers, Managing Director Alex Robinson (baritone), Operations Director Katherine Doig (soprano), and inaugural Artistic Director Margot Button (mezzo-soprano), soon after the trio had returned home to Christchurch from their respective years of working and studying abroad.

The company was established to celebrate and grow the talent of Waitaha Canterbury's local opera singers, musicians, and associated creative and technical teams, and to make opera more accessible to the community. However the dedicated trio, realising that an opera company can only go so far without an extraordinary tenor to bask merrily in the limelight, invited another much loved friend, teacher, and mentor (and probably Dannevirke’s most famous export) celebrated Aotearoa NZ tenor Patrick Power ONZM to lend his significant mana, and join the company as its patron.

Toi Toi Opera’s inaugural season Suor Angelica & Elegies, directed by Aotearoa NZ Arts Foundation Laureate Sara Brodie, premiered at the newly-restored Great Hall of The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora, in February 2021, to great audience and critical acclaim. Featuring Puccini’s exquisite one act opera Suor Angelica, complemented by Elegies a selection of staged scenes of the music of Britten, Butterworth and Vaughan Williams, the production was lauded as 'ingenious' and 'truly spectacular' (The Press), 'innovative, thought-provoking, and imaginative' (Theatreview), and 'an auspicious debut season' (NZ Opera News).

This was followed in August 2022 by A Barber & Bernstein Double Bill, a spellbinding new production, and really a triple bill - featuring Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti in its 70th anniversary year, and two works of Samuel Barber A Hand of Bridge and Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Directed by Matthew Kereama and starring some of Aotearoa's finest young operatic talent, it was labelled 'innovative, imaginative and adventurous' (The Press), 'ingenious' and 'compelling' (Theatreview).

Having subsequently gone on, in March 2023, to delight the crowds at the inaugural Off Centre festival at The Arts Centre with an immersive journey through some of opera's best-known and best-loved highlights (complete with Viking helmets and breast plates, of course!) Toi Toi Opera was thrilled to partner with The Arts Centre once again for their 2023-2024 season. This time presenting the new, fully accessible, family-friendly Ōtautahi Opera Festival, which ran from December 2023 to March 2024. With the tagline ‘One cup naughty, one cup nice, and add a dash of festive spice!’ - the inaugural festival presented four entirely new productions designed to enchant and entrance opera fans both young and old, including A Christmas Carol by Ōtautahi-Christchurch’s own Philip Norman, two children’s operas based on fairytales by John Davies Goldie B. Locks & the Three Singing Bears and The Three Little Pigs, and concluding with a deliciously decadent production of Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus (Prince Orlofsky’s Masquerade Ball).

The second Ōtautahi Opera Festival, staged across summer 2024-2025, launched with a sold out three-performance repeat season of A Christmas Carol in The Great Hall in December 2024. Labelled ‘imaginative, innovative and uplifting’ (The Press), ‘joyous’ (Theatreview), and ‘a superb ensemble performance’ (NZ Opera News), Norman’s utterly charming Christmas opera is taking its rightful place as a much-loved highlight of Canterbury’s festive calendar. Two delightful outdoor performances of John Davies’ hilarious children’s opera The Billy Goats Gruff, with music based on scenes from the operas of Mozart, Donizetti, and Rossini, followed in February 2025, concluding another spectacularly successful summer season for the company.

Deciding that the company’s sixth birthday really ought to be celebrated in style (and needing no further excuse to eat delicious cake, pour bubbles, and revel in a night of divine opera) the company threw a birthday party in August 2025, Serenade to Music - Toi Toi Opera’s 6th Birthday Soirée at their new home, The Piano: Centre for Music and the Arts in Christchurch, where the co-directors are currently proud Artists in Residence. Celebrating Toi Toi Opera’s wonderful seasons past, present, and future, and featuring a 30-strong cast of the company’s singers accompanied by Toi Toi Opera’s formidable ‘fab-3’ team of staff répétiteurs - Alison Holden, Jeremy Woodside, & Matthew Oswin, the highlight of this exquisite evening was a rare performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ shimmering Serenade to Music - chosen to whet appetites for the company’s forthcoming season of the same composer’s Riders to the Sea, which took to the stage in October 2025.

This immersive new production of Vaughan Williams’ masterful tragic opera saw the welcome return to the company of Sara Brodie as production director and Mark Hodgkinson as conductor, and incorporated the music of Dame Gillian Whitehead, David Hamilton, and John Ireland, as well as original taonga pūoro interludes by Mahina-Ina Kingi-Kaui. Featuring a uniformly superb cast of principal, featured, and comprimario artists, as well as the Toi Toi Opera Chorus and Toi Toi Opera Chamber Orchestra, all proudly Waitaha Canterbury born, bred, or resident - reviewers labelled the season ‘powerful and poignant’ (The Press), ‘a most rewarding night at the opera’ (NZ Opera News), and remarked that ‘the whole production impressed with conviction and imagination’ (Theatreview).

Following the completion of their 2025 seasons the company’s administration has expanded, with the creation of two new artistic management positions to support the co-directors and trustees as the company moves from strength to strength. Inaugural appointees to these new roles are current trustee Julian Anderson who becomes Head of Drama, and long-standing Toi Toi Opera répétiteur Jeremy Woodside who becomes Head of Music. Co-founder Margot Button having departed Ōtautahi to take up a new role as Artist Teacher in voice at The University of Auckland’s School of Music has stepped down from her dual role as trustee and Artistic Director of Toi Toi Opera, and has been appointed co-patron of the company to recognise and celebrate her invaluable contribution to the company’s artistic shape and leadership. Co-founder, trustee, and Operations Director Katherine Doig will act as interim Artistic Director to oversee the execution of the company’s planned 2026 and 2027 seasons, while the company searches for a new Artistic Director to fill Margot’s very big shoes!

Toi Toi Opera is overjoyed to have been awarded Creative New Zealand Arts Organisations and Groups Funding to help support the delivery of their 2026 programme of work, with all forthcoming seasons and auditions soon to be announced.