Auckland tenor Ipu Laga'aia sang for his supper on a two-week tour of Italy.
Auckland tenor Ipu Laga’aia found himself so moved on a recent “spiritual pilgrimage” to Italy that he was nearly kicked out of church by security guards at the Vatican.
In the tombs of the popes under St Peter’s Basilica, visitors are required to pay their respects in silence. Unable to hold back, he broke with convention and let his voice ring out through the chamber.
“Usually when you make noise down there, security will tell you to be quiet or escort you out, but no one came,” says Laga’aia, who performed a modern version of the hymn, Panis Angelicus (The Bread of Life).
“Something inside me just really wanted to sing. The reverence in that moment blew me away.”
One of four stars on the bill for Auckland’s Opera in the Park this month, Laga’aia was New Zealand Opera’s featured company artist in 2025, and made his professional debut as the hero Theseus in The Monster in the Maze last September.
For the past decade, he has also been part of The Shades, a classically trained Samoan and Tongan quartet that has sung the national anthem for the Silver Ferns netball team and provided pre-match entertainment during the 2017 Lions rugby tour.
A youth worker with Barnardo’s and the Graeme Dingle Foundation between music gigs, Laga’aia was nicknamed “Princess” by his three older sisters – “because I get away with everything”.
Raised in the Catholic faith by his Samoan parents, he sang Ave Maria as the Angel Gabriel in a Christmas play when he was just 7 years old.
Laga’aia spent two weeks in Italy travelling with a tour group that included members of his church. At the Vatican, they had front-row seats at a papal audience with Pope Leo XIV in St Peter’s Square, where they draped the Samoan and New Zealand flags over the barrier.
Between visiting sacred sites, Laga’aia won over locals by singing for his supper at restaurants along the way. In Venice, he entertained throngs of tourists on a gondola ride through the canals.
“That turned some heads,” he says. “By the time we reached the end of the trip, there was a whole crowd following us.”
Laga’aia, 29, studied classical voice at the University of Auckland and famously serenaded Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in a surprise performance at the Aotea Centre’s renaming gala for the theatre that now bears her name.
As well as headlining two free Opera in the Park shows this month, he’ll take the stage at the Bruce Mason Centre on February 23 as part of a concert by New Zealand Opera that opens the Auckland Live Morning Melodies season.
To Laga’aia, singing is his vocation, and the time he spent in Italy not only deepened his faith but “sparked a light” to more seriously pursue his talent overseas.
Two members of The Shades are already based in Europe. Tenor Manase Latu, who played the lead role in New Zealand Opera’s 2024 production of Le comte Ory, is a member of the Opera Troupe in Paris. Bass-baritone Samson Setu is currently performing in Don Giovanni with Belgium’s Opera Vlaanderen in Antwerp.
The quartet, which includes baritone Taka Vuni, met on their first day at university, bonding as the only Pacific Islanders in the course.
In many ways, Laga’aia felt at home in Italy. The language has a similar rhythm to Samoan, and the family-based culture resonated with him, too. What he really fell in love with, though, was the pizza.
“I don’t think I can eat pizza here any more,” he says, with a laugh. “Every time you watch Italians cook, they’re smiling and laughing with the people around them. They make food with love and that’s what adds a special touch to the flavour.”
Joanna Wane is a senior lifestyle writer with a special interest in social issues and the arts.