Figaro heads for the factory floor

A converted warehouse in Newmarket is home to Opera Factory's newest production. WILLIAM DART reports.

The Opera Factory's premises live up to the name - a converted warehouse in the back streets of Newmarket. The roof is lined with insulation foil, with bare light bulbs above the audience. It is just a few days before Figaro Fever, the company's first production this year, and there are upwards of 40 young people on stage, in a rousing chorus.

Director Sally Sloman is on the sideline. She keeps in touch with backstage cast ("Is everybody okay back there? Just do some deep breathing") and occasionally moves on stage, showing a nervous cigarette girl just how to drape herself over a soldier, or asking one rapturously toned but verbally indistinct young soprano, "Is that in Russian? Can't hear a word."

Sloman, whose witty performances were always one of the treats in the days of the old Perkel Opera Company, has been involved with Opera Factory since it was founded in 1994. She describes its philosophy in one word: "POET: Performance, Opportunity, Education and Training", and it's one that has served them well for 25 seasons.

She describes this production as a pot-pourri. The singer playing Figaro takes us through the streets of Seville and introduces us to the various operatic characters that might have been found there over the next few hundred years. The shifts of style are dizzying as the music dashes between Rossini, Mozart and Bizet, with a taste of Verdi on the side, but the company knows what is wanted.

There are already performances which make my skin tingle: 18-year-old Paul Erbs and 17-year-old Catherine Reaburn in La ci darem, gorgeously sung and played, gaining much from the intimacy of the venue; and Victoria Rainbow, who started in the company in 1994 as a 13-year-old, as a very blonde and flamboyant Carmen.

Guest turns include the young tenor Paul Chappory, a creditable Fenton in the NBR New Zealand Opera's recent Falstaff, and Joanna Heslop, who was an emerging artist with the bigger company last year.

Chappory enchants with a Rossini Serenade; Heslop, already in costume, revels in the roulades of Rosina's Una voca poco fa.

Musical director Claire Caldwell is a stickler for keeping the energy up, as she gestures instructions to singers from behind a piano. I'm astounded when a call to make the Figaro sextet "over the top" creates some true Mozartian elegance.

It's an inspiration to see the commitment and spirit of these young singers but "it's more than just singing", says Sloman. "There's the social contact and the absolutely wonderful friendships that are forged."

And one senses this lies behind the teamwork of the ensemble work, especially in a riotous Piano, pianissimo from Rossini's Barber.

Humour abounds, on stage and off. And it's put together on a budget that can inspire a Pacific ingenuity - when Don Giovanni enters with a giant sculptural guitar, Sloman leans over to me: "It's amazing what you can do with a nikau palm."

Sloman is proud of Opera Factory's achievements. Eight former members are studying overseas, 15 are in the New Zealand Opera chorus and three of this year's NZO's four emerging singers come from its ranks.

But she would like more security than she has at present: "Here we are, camping for the moment through the generosity of an anonymous landlord. Our days are numbered in this venue and what are the options? If we fold, what happens to all these wonderful New Zealand singers?"

In the meantime, Aucklanders (and potential sponsors) have eight evenings to experience Figaro Fever.

* Figaro Fever, Opera Factory, 2 Morgan St, Newmarket, March 7-17.