The Mozart Narropera Trio have chosen Peel Centenary Centre as the venue for their opening performance of Don Giovanni, which they will follow up in venues around the UK.

The show, on June 23, will be in partnership with Hospice Isle of Man. Hospice’s patron, the Lieutenant Governor, will be present.

Narropera is a new art form which combines arias with a narrative. It is performed by soprano, Dorothee Jansen, with Haydn Rawstrom, the narrator and pianist, and Floriane Peycelon on violin.

Haydn and Dorothee have a home in the island, which they use as a place to write and rehearse, as Haydn explained: ’We aim to spend between two and a half and three months each year at home in Castletown, in two periods which we use for rehearsal and development of new ideas; revisions of our repertoire, and for conceiving new narroperas.

’We used to spend more time on the island but the demands of narropera mean we are travelling more each year.’

It is 12 months since they gave their last performance here, at the Gaiety Theatre and Haydn told us how the new genre has been progressing in that time.

’The developments in narropera over the past year have to do with the level of acceptance of the new format and the general enthusiam for our performances at a high level of exposure,’ he said.

’In Bonn, in Germany, for instance, in April, we presented our narropera of Mozart’s "Così fan tutte" in one of the most important chamber music halls in Germany.Bonn’s public is also one of the most musically discerning in Germany.’

The response to the performance, including the review from a highly regarded opera magazine, was overwhelmingly positive.

Haydn said: ’Opera tradition in Germany is massive and the public is so used to the "real thing", that one can be forgiven for thinking that Germany has no place for narropera.

’But on the Bonn reaction, it is clearly not so.

’A lady from north Germany heard our performance in Bonn, as she was conveniently passing through the city, and she now wants us to begin a festival in her grand country house near Hamburg, which we will do later this year.

’In the last 12 months we also made our debut in Oxford, at Christ Church, as entertainment for an extremely distinguished invited public.

’The performance was presented in the stunning Upper Library at Christ Church, one of the finest interiors in rococo style in England.

’The magnificent room is only able to be used twice a year for concerts (fire regulations) and we were invited for one of those performances.

’The audience was made up probably entirely of people who regularly attend opera in Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Garsington etc.

’The new genre Narropera was so popular that Christ Church has invited us back this year, to provide the pre-dinner entertainment for an equally grand occasion in September.’

He said the performances in the last months in Bonn and Oxford mark a ’significant breakthrough’ in acceptance of narropera at the upper end of the market and ’augurs well for our future development’.

’We have achieved this sort of breakthrough after only five years of developing a new art form in a highly competitive market, completely from scratch.’

Don Giovanni is regarded by many opera fans as the best opera ever written and Haydn said: ’If opera is not exactly to everyone’s taste, a good story is.

’Narropera gives equal weight to story and music, in a format designed as much for the first-timer as for the fan. If you have children, this is the perfect introduction to opera for them.

’One might say that the story of Don Giovanni has suddenly become very relevant in the post-Weinstein and "me-too" movement.

’The 500-year-old story of Don Juan’s (Don Giovanni’s) serial seductions is today a particularly prickly one: as Mozart’s lyricist informs us, he had 2,056 recorded successful seductions!’

Tickets for the Mozart Narropera Trio’s performance of Don Giovanni are now available to be booked direct, on the Peel Centenary Centre’s website: http://www.etickets.im/cc

From Wednesday, tickets will also be available from Celtic Gold, Shakti Man, Thompson’s Travel and GH Corletts. They cost £15 for adults while entry for under 18s is free.

by Julie Blackburn

Twitter:@iomnewspapers