After a torturous 1700 words detailing the eruption of anger at the announcement of a weird decision to spend Creative NZ money backing an Opera around unruly British tourists, journalist Greg Bruce totally buries the lead by announcing in the last paragraph of this autopsy that the Opera NZ Director who greenlit this project, De Mallet Burgess, has actually quit!!!!
Early last month, it was announced that de Mallet Burgess has agreed to take up a position as artistic director of opera at the Finnish National Opera and Ballet. He will leave New Zealand in August, shortly after The Unruly Tourists.
So the Opera NZ Director has quit, anyone with a reputation on the Opera Board has quit and Creative NZ has been left holding the can for a 3 day season of this Opera in March of next year.
I thought with the death of one of these tourists this year that the show would have to be dumped altogether as the predictable statements from the family will be harsh and immediately picked up by media once the show starts, but the money shovelled into this alongside all the reputations burnt must have meant they were too far gone to stop it.
Now, it could be that The Unruly Tourists is the greatest musical since the Rocky Horror Picture Show and it will take the globe by storm and be a permanent rebuke to those who have criticised it, or it could erupt a brand new storm of controversy aimed at Creative NZ.
As NZ starts a recession, Creative NZ who had no money for Shakespeare (because his work is heteronormative white cis male privilege), had money to promote an Opera about bad tourists.
The ACT Party and Taxpayers’ Union press releases on The Unruly Tourist will write themselves.
Creative NZ must be feeling very nervous right now.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
It makes perfect sense, it’s about white people behaving badly so Creative NZ are all over it.
You’ve just got to think like a waste of space troughing woke narcissistic wanker with half a brain.
The unruly tourists were apparently a group of white people, so Creative New Zealand may think that they’ve pulled off the coup of a lifetime – not withstanding the family now coping with a very sad loss.
FHS the ‘sad loss’ thing gets rolled out again by sensitive, sympathetic people to the latest tragedy du jour. Now it’s the gross tourists and their appropriate children. But we have regular tragedies du minute in NZ and don’t actually act to prevent them. Wasn’t there something in Lewis Carroll about stored up tears. We’re so good at these ‘crocodile’ tears someone could set up a business called ‘Healing Tears’ (copyright not applied for and not wishing to contravene) that would be sold in little flasks like holy water
Same old crap, different day. The kids are in charge of the Kindergarten. I’m surprised they didn’t do it in Te Reo.
I thought that the unruly tourists were a family of Irish travellers who visited New Zealand, in which case it looks as if Creative New Zealand are being racist again and they should be reported to the Race Relations Conciliator. They wouldn’t get away with making a musical about badly behaved Americans or Maori. It’s culturally insensitive, and nothing to sing and dance about. If the unruly tourists were in fact Brits, then it’s just business as usual for the Arts Council, bashing away at our shared heritage.
Singing, dancing and oodles of kiwi humor (I hope). Can’t wait! 4 stars (minus one star coz it’s an opera). Brilliant idea. Those tourists were aresholes
It’s because Trevor Mallard went over there (to Ireland) and now they are honouring (buttering up) the country that has taken him on.
Greywarbler. It’s unclear quite how a production showing unruly Irish travellers behaving badly in New Zealand, could be seen as honouring, or buttering up to
Ireland.
A musical showing the ground-breaking work carried out in education by pioneering Irish nuns around Canterbury and the West Coast, far from their own land and families, could be seen as honouring Ireland. This looks more like dragging the Irish down, assuming that the persons concerned were, in fact, Irish. And the unruly got to go back home again, which is more than most of those young nuns ever did.
At least the Uk government doesn’t sponsor revelations of Kiwis on pub crawls around London, and we may not appreciate it if they did.
it’s a thing art tends to be about ‘things’ now is it an opera or piece of musical theatre aimed at vilifying ‘irish travellers’ is the bigger question.
Gagarin. You flatter Creative New Zealand by implying that they are concerned with big questions. They are mere dispensers of our loot, for their own divisive little agendas, that’s all.
Gagarin They’re unlikely to be looking at the unruly travellers in a positive way. A government body, Creative New Zealand, providing government funding for an exposé about visitors from another country, is an error of judgment.
They should stay clear of any involvement at all. It’s not a good look, especially for a government which pretends to be kind, and using unfortunate others for entertainment purposes is never acceptable grown-up behaviour. I suppose it’s more their intellectual level than the Bard of Avon, but it’s still not okay.
and no doubt they will be described as english even though they were irish
Gagarin Either way, it won’t make any difference to Creative New Zealand. Their dismissal of a literary genius as an “ imperialist” was total rubbish, and they should have been made to justify that and other ridiculous sweeping generalisations about Shakespeare’s impact on the colonisation of New Zealand. I’m calling them out as racist, but that won’t worry them a scrap anyway. It’s the relentless assault on European culture which is unacceptable.
The only thing I recall about the unruly travellers is a cheeky kid, a big-bellied man in a singlet, and someone had something from Bunnings. At the back of my mind there’s a journo asking goading questions, but this isn’t a doco, it’s posing as an opera.
But whatever it, is the New Zealand government should not be supporting something so wrong at so many levels but they just couldn’t resist the chance to support a bit of Brit bashing, the cheap little turds.
Oh I can’t wait for this to drop!! With a bit of luck it will stop swathes of tourists from coming to “racist NZ” while we rebuild our shattered country. I only wish it was a comedy play though rather than an opera. Much more fun.
Unruly tourists coming here eh?
Anyone noticed drunken Kiwi antics at Oktoberfest? (Have to admit when Germans asked me “are those New Zealanders?’ I answered ” of course not -Australians)
Stevie. Hush. You might put ideas into the Minister of Culture and Heritage’s empty head. The Arts Council femmes may be salivating at more men’s heads being handed to them on a platter. Hush.
Omg. Surely for Creative NZ it’s three strikes and your out!
Anker. It could be helpful to hear Carmel Sepuloni, the Minister for Culture and Heritage, comment upon this, but I imagine that she’s quite busy ensuring that the Children’s Commissioner is abolished.
I do hope that Creative New Zealand isn’t enabling unruly travellers’ children to be featured in this opera. The implications of that aren’t good. It could damage the kids but it could also make them wrongly think that they are little heroes. Hopefully Kelvin Davis, the Minister for Children, will be keeping a watchful eye on the children’s interests here and ensuring that New Zealand isn’t seen as exploiting or bullying children, or doing so.