Cosi Fan Tutte plays again tonight and Friday, during the Otago Festival of the Arts.
The tale of love, temptation and seduction has been described as "Mozart's most perfect opera".
It is the third opera that director Jacqueline Coats, of Wellington, has directed for Opera Otago after Salieri's Falstaff in 2006 and the premiere of Prof John Drummond's Larnach in 2007.
Drummond, who is Blair Professor of Music at the University of Otago, has also worked on this production, producing a new English translation for the opera.
"I love coming down here. I really enjoy working with Opera Otago," Coats says.
"It's a small company that works very, very hard to keep the standard of opera up high here. Dunedin's very lucky to have Opera Otago."
The predecessor to Opera Otago, the Dunedin Opera Company, was formed in 1956 and is the oldest opera company in New Zealand.
The production is a five-star showcase of Otago talent, with local singers Penelope Muir, Marion Taylor, Matthew Landreth and 2002 Otago Daily Times Aria winner Robert Tucker, while Dunedin conductor Holly Mathieson leads the Southern Sinfonia.
They are joined by Wellington soprano Georgia Jamieson Emms, who won the Nelson Sealord Aria in August, and Auckland tenor Bonaventure Allan-Moetaua.
"It's the first time Holly Mathieson has done a Mozart opera. For most of the cast it's the first time they've done these roles," Coats says.
"They all get on very well together and it really comes across on stage. It's lovely hearing six people in the Mayfair Theatre. The audience is so close to the stage, too, which I really like about the Mayfair.
"It's gorgeous, gorgeous music, with lots of Mozart arias, duets and sextets. The singing is all in English, too, which is great, so you can really hear the words to the songs."
Coats is a theatre tutor at Victoria University in Wellington and is renowned for her site-specific and devised theatre work.
"It's been really, really interesting to do. It hasn't been staightforward. Cosi Fan Tutte is quite a complex opera. On the surface it seems light and farcical, but there's lots of emotion going on underneath."
Così Fan Tutte is one of the three Mozart operas for which Lorenzo da Ponte wrote the libretto.
The other two Mozart-da Ponte collaborations were Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni.
The title, Così Fan Tutte, literally means "Thus do all [women]", but is usually translated as "Women are like that".
The story starts with two soldiers, Fernando and Guglielmo, sitting in a coffee shop boasting about the virtue of their respective fiancees, Dorabella and Fiordiligi.
Don Alfonso joins the discussion and lays a wager with the two men, claiming he can prove in a day's time that, like all women, they are fickle.
The wager is accepted and the fun begins.
But things begin to change and the light-hearted wager turns out to have shattering consequences for all concerned.
The cast features Georgia Jamieson Emms as Fiordiligi, Penelope Muir as Dorabella, Marion Taylor as Despina, Matthew Landreth as Don Alfonso, Robert Tucker as Guglielmo and Bonaventure Allan-Moetaua as Fernando.
