Wellington Comic Opera
Wellington Comic Opera has delighted and amused audiences across New Zealand since 1957. Our productions are done to a professional standard drawing on the region's best singers and actors.
We are an incorporated society. Our legal (and original) name is the Wellington Gilbert & Sullivan Society. We changed to Wellington Comic Opera in 2021.
Our 2025 season will be a lightly updated version of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado set in the Scottish Highlands.
Although we held a first round of auditions on 16 & 17 November 2024, we are still auditioning for chorus members - both men and women. If you missed the earlier auditions for any reason and would still like to audition, please fill in details on the booking form - link below. We are looking at additional auditions at some point in the second half of January 2025.
We are still confirming our venues and performance times, but it's looking like this at present - noting that dates are unlikely to change:
10 & 11 May Whirinaki, Upper Hutt (afternoon);
16 & 17 May, Memorial Theatre, Wellington (evening/afternoon);
18 May Globe, Palmerston North (afternoon);
23 May Little Theatre, Lower Hutt (evening);
24 May Te Raukura, Raumati (afternoon);
25 May Memorial Theatre, Wellington (afternoon).
Rehearsals will be at Te Whaea - Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 7.30 to 9.30, and Sunday afternoons from 2pm to 5pm. Rehearsals will run from 18 March till 8 May.
David Cox is Director and William McElwee Musical Director. Both include a generous amount of Gilbert & Sullivan in their backgrounds - including performing the Major-General and Pirate King, respectively, in our 2023 show Pirates!
If you would like to audition for chorus, please fill in details on the booking form here
You can download a score of The Mikado at this link here (note that it is 10mb).
You can access music files to help learn a page or two from the Mikado at this link here.
Below are a few photos from our July 2024 concert series where fifteen of our performers did selections from My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly, The Music Man, Calamity Jane, Call Me Madam, and State Fair.
It's a grand night for singing
Music director: Lesley Graham
Accompanist: Dayle Anderson
Movement Director: Shirley Kauter
Performers: Kassandra Wang, Gisela de la Villa, Melody Holmes, Rosie Knight, Margaret Mabbett, Antonia Selby, Matilda Wickborn, Kevin O'Kane, David Cox, Ian Graham, Lindsay Groves, Steve Hendry, Yang Liu, Josh Long, and Vincent Wong.
PHOTOS: the team on the Khandallah Town Hall stage
Pirates!
Our 2023 season of PIRATES! toured Wellington, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Raumati, and Palmerston North in May 2023. Directed by the talented Alison Hodge with Music Direction by Michael Vinten, Theatreview described it as "Spiffingly good fun, genuinely rollicking, tuneful, and a super-intelligent update".
Photos of a few of our older (pre-Covid) shows are shown below...
Please email us at wco@wellingtoncomicopera.nz if you would like to (a) receive our occasional newsletters where we advertise auditions, or (b) receive information on upcoming productions and ticketing. We would love to hear from you. You can also follow us on our Facebook page.
