In March 2021, Ihitai'Avei'a – Star Navigator premiered to sell-out South Auckland crowds before Covid-19 closed the curtains.
Next month, the uniquely Kiwi/Pacific production returns for two nights at Porirua's Te Rauparaha Arena (9 December and 11 December).
Composer Tim Finn was exploring a replica of Captain Cook's ship Endeavour when he first got the idea for telling the story of the English navigator's Tahitian shipmate – the priest and navigator Tupaia.
"I thought [the Endeavour's cabin) was a very theatrical space, the refinement and the constriction. And yet all these great minds [onboard] were kind of exploding with ideas and with knowledge," he tells Susie Ferguson.
To help tell the story of the charismatic figure Tupaia, Finn enlisted Tahitian writer Célestine Hitiura Vaite as his guide.
Before writing monologues for Ihitai 'Avei'a – Star Navigator, which is told in Tahitian and English, Célestine had never considered working on an opera.
Tim Finn / Célestine Hitiura Vaite Photo: supplied
Listen to the full interview with Tim Finn and Célestine Hitiura Vaite
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions.
On the opening nigh Ihitai 'Avei'a – Star Navigator in Manukau, 47 percent of the audience had never been to the opera before – for Finn, that was a measure of great success.
"Opera was never meant to be elitist, it's for the people. It's a wonderful art form that I have found, in my experience, to be very open to new ideas and new people. And that's to be celebrated."
In preparation for composing songs for Ihitai 'Avei'a – Star Navigator, Finn read books on Tupaia and with his family twice visited the sacred marae where he was trained as a priest and navigator.
When he contacted Célestine, she happened to be five years into researching Tahitian history for her own interest.
She was extremely moved by the first song Finn wrote for the opera and subsequently "got the okay from the ancestors".
"When I heard the respect and the love, the arohanui ... I just thought 'yes, you've been chosen.' This story is bigger than us. This story will go on after we've gone.
"When he contacted me I was absolutely ready for the role."
A Māori man and Joseph Banks exchanging a crayfish for a piece of cloth, drawing by Tupaia, c. 1769 Photo: Public domain
Ihitai 'Avei'a – Star Navigator was originally commissioned by West Australian Opera after Finn had a chance meeting with the company's executive director Carolyn Chard.
When the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra then got onboard, he says the show seemed to take on a life of its own.
That said, opera is a highly collaborative art form and Finn says he couldn't have pulled off the production alone.
He got help from fellow composer Tom McLeod – who Hitiura Vaite calls "the genius baby of Aotearoa" – and invaluable Tahitian language translator and coach Enu Manuireva.
Hitiura Vaite believes the entire evolution of Ihitai 'Avei'a – Star Navigator was "guided".
"Tim Finn is the beloved son of Aotearoa and I am the beloved daughter of Tahiti so we were meant to collaborate together. It was destiny."
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