"Hold on to your wigs, the show is about to begin," boomed from the speakers and, within seconds, an eager festival audience was caught up in the cultural whirl of Jack Body's Songs and Dances of Desire.
Mere Boynton, intoning a magnificent karanga, led her fellow soloists from stalls to stage and, after a sun-drenched blast of orchestra, Chinese countertenor Xiao Ma was seducing us with the Seguidille from Bizet's Carmen.
The evening - a tribute to the late Carmen Rupe, and the major undertaking of Body's composing residency with Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra - was a big-hearted, life-embracing salute to cultural diversity and personal courage.
Dancer Jason Moore, in a series of dazzling set pieces, was the anchor in a programme of often wild contrasts.
Dressed in a series of extravagant creations, Moore caught Carmen the nightclub performer, twirling down from the ceiling in a sinuous African snake dance, and giving us a sultry Salome that Richard Strauss could never have imagined.
