A British gypsy family who terrorised New Zealand for weeks on their summer holidays have inspired a controversial new stage show being written in their honour by the country’s premier opera company and sparked a massive row.
The Doran family and their associates left a shameful trail of filth and devastation in their wake two years ago, antics which saw them branded ‘worse than pigs’ by the Mayor of Auckland.
Several family members were convicted of theft and fraud and the Dorans were eventually marched onto a plane by immigration officers to be deported back to Britain, where they live among the Irish traveller community in the Midlands.
Now, however, New Zealand Opera plans to reincarnate the group as the stars of their next summer season in what they are billing as a comedy designed to bring new audiences to opera.
A British gypsy family who terrorised New Zealand for weeks on their summer holidays two years ago have inspired a controversial new opera being written in their honour (pictured: one of the family members during their infamous holiday)
The Doran family and their associates left a shameful trail of filth and devastation in their wake two years ago, antics which saw them branded ‘worse than pigs’ by the Mayor of Auckland (pictured: debris left behind on the beach)
But the plan has already hit trouble, with a third of NZO’s board resigning after repeated clashes with the publicly funded company’s British-born director, Thomas de Mallet Burgess.
Renowned New Zealand tenor singer Simon O’Neill said the idea ‘reeks of racism’.
‘If that family were from Nigeria or Thailand I doubt that New Zealand Opera would be investing any money to make fun of them,’ he told Newstalk ZB.
‘It’s middle class snobbery from an Oxford-educated middle talented snob.’
Mr O’Neill described the Doran clan as ‘clowns’ and said ‘I really hated those guys when they were here’.
But he said Mr de Mallet Burgess’s ideas were ‘undoing the years of work the company has dedicated to making international level opera available in this country’.
Several family members were convicted of theft and fraud and the Dorans were eventually marched onto a plane by immigration officers to be deported back to Britain, where they live among the Irish traveller community in the Midlands (pictured: several family members speaking to the police)
Mr O’Neill said NZO were wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money and the plan was a ‘knife through the heart’ of opera in New Zealand.
NZ Opera’s head of music Lindy Tennent-Brown also quit the company after clashing with Mr de Mallet Burgess, telling him the gypsy tourist opera idea was ‘odious’.
She said last night the show was aimed at ‘middle class snobs who want to go and laugh at people less fortunate than themselves’.
Mrs Tennent-Brown, an award winning pianist and voice coach who like Mr de Mallet Burgess has worked at London’s Royal Opera House, said the family’s behaviour in New Zealand had been ‘not just stupid and rude it was illegal’.
But she said turning their story into an opera was ridiculous and the brainchild of a ‘white, British, Oxbridge-educated man’.
‘Yes the family are white but they also a minority ethnic group who themselves feel persecuted in British life.
‘There are thousands of New Zealand stories that could be told through the medium of opera but instead he will sink millions of dollars into this.
‘I accept the opera is about the response of New Zealanders to this group of people, but it feels like a post-colonial stab in the back.’
The plan has already hit trouble, with a third of NZO’s board resigning after repeated clashes with the publicly funded company’s British-born director, Thomas de Mallet Burgess (pictured), who has defended his project as ‘completely unique’ and said ‘the people who know about this project have instantly found it fascinating’
Three of NZO’s board resigned as news of the plan emerged, led by Maori writer Witi Ihimaera, the author behind Oscar-nominated movie Whale Rider. The trio have refused to comment on their departure.
Mrs Tennent-Brown said the trio had binding non-disclosure agreements with NZO, but all had been frustrated by Mr de Mallet Burgess’s role.
‘Any time anyone dares to disagree with his vision he accuses them of being traditionalists and shuts them down,’ she said. ‘He brooks no dissent and surrounds himself with people who know nothing about opera.’
But Mr de Mallett Burgess has defended his project as ‘completely unique’ and said ‘the people who know about this project have instantly found it fascinating’.
Auckland mayor Phill Goff labelled the tourists ‘a*******’ in a radio interview, adding that they shouldn’t be in the country
He told the New Zealand Herald: ‘Aside from the essential comedic value of the unruly tourists being hunted by the media and people of New Zealand … there was also possibly a more serious theme about people coming from abroad and rampaging across the country.’
Led patriarch Larry Doran and his wife Barbara, 55, the group earned worldwide notoriety when they were filmed leaving piles of rubbish on Auckland’s Takapuna beach after a family picnic in January 2019.
A small, bare-chested child in a sombrero hat threatened to ‘knock the brains out’ of a female bystander who complained about their behaviour and another tourist tried to mow down a girl filming the incident in his car.
The group left several restaurants without paying after claiming to have found ants or hair in their food. Owners of a Wellington motel told how the family left it littered with Red Bull, spaghetti and cigarette butts and reeking of poo.
A 26-year-old tourist, seven-months-pregnant Tina Marie Cash, was convicted of stealing Red Bull and sunglasses from a petrol station.
But her brother-in-law, the Larry and Barbara Doran’s son Joe, said the family had been treated like animals and were ‘absolutely terrified for our life’.
NZ Opera’s head of music Lindy Tennent-Brown also quit the company after clashing with Mr de Mallet Burgess, telling him the gypsy tourist opera idea was ‘odious’ (pictured: the beach after the tourists left)
He complained: ‘We are a respectable family, we are a British family who have come here, as a Commonwealth country, to see New Zealand, to see the Hobbits and see the mountains.’
The Dorans finally left New Zealand after abandoning their car following a crash near the airport, which Joe blamed on a passer-by yelling insults at them.
Auckland mayor Phil Goff, New Zealand’s former foreign minister and Labour Party leader had no sympathy, calling the group ‘a********’. ‘These guys are trash,’ he said. ‘They are leeches.’
Back in Britain, the family have been involved in property and planning disputes in Worcestershire in which residents claim the Dorans have demanded hundreds of thousands of pounds to leave their villages.