The poor turnout has cast doubt on the company performing again in the Wakatipu.
Opera Otago singers Emma Fraser, Claire Barton, Julien van Mallearts, Michelle Willyams and Andreas Hirt, with pianist Julia Horsnell, performed the English-language comic opera double bill The Perils of Strong Women in the Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall on Saturday night.
The 10-strong audience was the smallest in Opera Otago's tour of eight centres in the South so far and the lowest turnout in in the 33-year career of Opera Otago production committee chairwoman Mary Dixon, she said.
The Dunedin company budgeted to sell 100 seats for each performance but the only place the company attracted that number was at home.
The show attracted 20 patrons in Oamaru last month and 53 in Gore on June 11.
Mrs Dixon said the cast wondered if they were performing the right opera, or if there had been enough advertising before the Arrowtown show. However, there had been 36 "really receptive" audience members in Alexandra, on Sunday night.
Mrs Dixon did not know whether Opera Otago would tour to Arrowtown or Queenstown again. The company might opt to take opera to the southern centres which had supported shows in the past, such as Gore and Alexandra.
