English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
Conductor Oliver Zeffman has commissioned the very first opera for a socially distanced world, which is now available to watch exclusively on Apple Music. Eight Songs From Isolation has been written by eight leading composers, specifically for streaming - rather than live performance - and is the first opera written for a time when the performers were unable to meet in person.
Leading freelance musicians unite in Parliament Square to call for targeted support for colleagues in the arts and entertainment sector.
Duo Lewis Murphy (composer) and Laura Attridge (writer) have launched a charitable song project entitled Notes From Isolation. The resulting songs, featuring some of the UK's top singing talent, are being released online between August and October 2020 and can be enjoyed free of charge.
The Royal Opera House is thrilled to announce an exciting, wide-ranging new line-up for its autumn programme. For the first time, extraordinary performances will be accessible online for a global audience through livestreams and for socially distanced live audiences at our home in Covent Garden. In a global first, we present a new opera in hyper-reality, alongside repertory favourites from both artistic companies.
Some of the most famous and outstanding stars from the opera world are to take part in a very special evening from Wexford Festival Opera, including Aigul Akhmetshina, Joseph Calleja, Daniela Barcellona, Juan Diego Flórez, Igor Golovatenko, Ermonela Jaho, Sergey Romanovsky, and many more.
Following its successful launch in 2019, OperaStreaming streams nine operas on YouTube from the historic opera houses of Emilia-Romagna during the 2020-21 season, with fully-staged productions of Verdi's La traviata in October from Modena and Verdi'sOtello from Bologna in...
‘A brief history of song’ is the subtitle of the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival (10th-17th October), which will present an ambitious, diverse and imaginative programme of 40 performances and events.
Bampton Classical Opera returns to the Baroque splendour of London’s St John’s Smith Square on November 6 with a concert performance of Gluck’s one-act opera The Crown, the first in the UK since 1987. The performance will also be filmed and available to watch on demand on the Bampton website from 9 November.
While many of us spent lockdown at home taking it a little easier, composer Andrew Synnott wrote an opera.
Owen Wingrave is part of the new Interim Season of 19 brand new events, all free to view online between September and December 2020.
The Arts Council has awarded innovative UK charity Music and Theatre For All (MTFA) a major new grant to develop three ambitious new projects in the wake of Covid 19.
English National Opera (ENO) will reopen the London Coliseum to socially distanced audiences on 6 and 7 November for special performances of Mozart’s Requiem. These will provide audiences with an opportunity to reflect upon and to commemorate the difficulties the nation has faced during the pandemic.
The Royal Opera House is proud to continue its curated #OurHouseToYourHouse programme into the autumn, bringing audiences the best of the ROH through a new series of Friday Premieres and cultural highlights.
After six months of closure, the Royal Opera House is thrilled to be opening its doors to the public as part of Open House London weekend, giving visitors a taste of one of the world’s most famous theatres for free.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields is thrilled to announce re:connect - an eight concert series with live socially distanced audiences at its namesake church, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The autumn concerts will take place at 5pm & 7:30pm on two Saturdays per month with guest artists including baritone Roderick Williams, soprano Carolyn Sampson and composer-conductor-pianist Ryan Wigglesworth performing a wide range of repertoire.
Music and poetry unite and collide across centuries, from the Medieval to the Enlightenment to the present day. This year, the Oxford Lieder Festival will present a thrilling and innovative programme comprising more than forty events streamed over eight days.
The English Concert with artistic director Harry Bicket is delighted to announce a series of concerts from 1-15 October 2020. The concerts take place in historic London venues with star soloists and will be performed and streamed live to a paying audience at 7pm GMT on each performance date. The programmes include first-class vocal and instrumental works from the two pillars of the English Baroque, covering different aspects of the repertoire.
Glyndebourne has announced plans for a ‘staycation’ series of socially-distanced indoor performances, starting on 10 October 2020.
The Royal Opera House is delighted to announce two packed evenings of opera and ballet, live from our stage in Covent Garden and available to view wherever you are in the world online.
Garsington Opera’s 30th anniversary season will feature four new productions - the UK stage premiere of Offenbach’s Fantasio, Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and finally Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.
The season culminates
with concert performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610,
celebrating the start of a partnership with The English Concert. The season
runs from 29 May to 26 July.
Garsington Opera remains committed to engaging great singers from around the world as well as showcasing the best talent from the UK. They are joined by the Garsington Opera Chorus and Orchestra, and for the performances of The Bartered Bride, the Philharmonia Orchestra.
The UK stage premiere of Offenbach’s little-known opera Fantasio celebrates his bicentenary year. A
beguiling tale of love and mistaken identity, it will feature Hanna Hipp, who sang Clairon in Capriccio last
season, in the role of the Jester, a melancholy,
moon-struck dreamer yearning after Princess Elsbeth, performed by Jennifer France, winner of the Critics Circle Emerging
Talent Award 2018, the Leonard Ingrams Foundation Award 2014 and praised
for her appearance as Susanna in John Cox’s legendaryLe nozze di Figaro. They are joined byHuw Montague Rendall (Prince of Mantua),Timothy Robinson (Marinoni),Brian Bannatyne-Scott (King of Bavaria) and Bianca Andrew (Flamel). Three singers, formerly on the
Alvarez Young Artists’ Programme, Benjamin Lewis (Sparck),Joseph Padfield (Hartmann) and Joel Williams (Facio) complete the cast. This fantastical
story is performed in a lively new English translation byJeremy Sams. The creative team of directorMartin Duncan and designer Francis O’Connor return after many admired productions at
Garsington Opera, and are joined by lighting designerHoward Hudson and choreographerEwan Jones. Making his Garsington Opera debut, Justin Doyle, Artistic Director of
RIAS Kammerchor
, Berlin, will conduct.
The Bartered Bride
, a celebration of Czech culture and identity, will be reimagined into the
heart of the English countryside, and will open the season.Natalya Romaniw, last seen at Garsington as Tatyana inEugene Onegin, sings the heroine Mař enka who uses all her charm and cunning to marry the man she loves
- Jeník, sung by American tenor Brenden Gunnell. The cast
includes Joshua Bloom (Kecal) last seen as Figaro (2017),Stuart Jackson (Vašek), Peter Savidge (Krušina), Heather Shipp
(Ludmila), Brian Bannatyne-Scott (Mícha),Anne-Marie Owens (Háta), andJeffrey Lloyd-Roberts (Circus Master). Lara Marie Müller, a former Alvarez Young Artist, sings
Esmeralda. Dance is at the heart of this sparkling work from the vibrant
overture to the riotous and festive polka; Jac van Steen,
who returns after his success with Pelléas et Mélisande (2017),
will conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra. The creative team
of Paul Curran (director) and Kevin Knigh
t (designer), whose production of Death in Venice (2015) was much
acclaimed, returns with Howard Hudson (lighting designer)
and Darren Royston (movement director).
Mozart's enduring masterpiece Don Giovanni will feature several role debuts including Jonathan McGovern in the title role, David Ireland (Leporello), formerly an Alvarez Young Artist, Australian soprano Sky Ingram (Donna Elvira) and Welsh tenor Trystan Llŷ r Griffiths (Don Ottavio). The cast also includes two UK debuts - Brazilian soprano Camila Titinger (Donna Anna) and Canadian soprano Mireille Asselin (Zerlina).Paul Whelan (Commendatore) and former Alvarez Young Artist Thomas Faulkner (Masetto) complete the cast. Garsington Opera’s Artistic Director Douglas Boyd conducts and former Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare CompanyMichael Boyd (director) returns to direct together withTom Piper (designer), after their success withPelléas et Mélisande (2017) and Eugene Onegin (2016) with Malcolm Rippeth (lighting designer).
The Turn of the Screw
with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, based on the novella by Henry James, is
considered to be one of Britten’s finest stage works. The gripping story of
a young governess, performed by Sophie Bevan, sent to a remote country house to care for two children,
also features the tenor Ed Lyon (Prologue/Quint), making
his role debut. Also in the cast are Kathleen Wilkinson
(Mrs Grose) and Katherine Broderick (Miss Jessel).
Emerging American director Louisa Muller makes her UK
debut together with two-time Olivier and Tony Award-winnerChristopher Oram (designer) andMalcolm Rippeth (lighting designer). Richard Farnes, conductor of last year’s admired Falstaff, will conduct.
Celebrating the start of a new partnership, the renowned Baroque and
Classical chamber orchestra The English Concert makes its
Garsington debut playing on period instruments in three concert
performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610.
They will be joined by soloists Mary Bevan,Sophie Bevan, Benjamin Hulett,Robert Murray and James Way.Laurence Cummings returns to conduct with the Garsington Opera Chorus.
Marking the end of the 30th anniversary season, on the three
concert days there will be an afternoon cricket match, tours of the Walled
Garden and Green Theatre Recitals showcasing the Alvarez Young Artists, as
well as the opportunity to visit the Getty Library.
OPERAFIRST AND FANTASIO
As part of an extensive Learning & Participation Programme, there will
be a full performance of Fantasio by the Alvarez Young Artists for
local school pupils and adults, all of whom take part in preparatory
workshops to introduce them to opera and deepen their enjoyment of the
performance.
GARSINGTON OPERA AT WORMSLEY
Opera patrons are invited to arrive from 3.30pm to enjoy the extensive gardens and Deer Park of the Wormsley Estate in the heart of the Chilterns, before performances begin in the early evening. Those arriving early can take a short trip in a vintage bus to the 18th century Walled Garden. On their return, they can enjoy traditional afternoon tea overlooking the cricket pitch, admire the spectacular views across the Deer Park and lake from the Champagne Bar, or stroll around the Opera Garden and grounds. In the long dinner interval patrons can dine in the elegant restaurant marquee overlooking the famous Wormsley Cricket Ground or they can have a picnic by the lake, in the garden or in one of the private picnic tents. Performances resume as the evening light begins to fade and end around 10.15pm. A minibus service connects with High Wycombe station, a half hour train journey from London. A short open-air recital by Alvarez Young Artists awaits Saturday patrons in the Green Theatre in the Walled Garden (weather permitting).
WIDENING ACCESS TO GARSINGTON OPERA
Garsington Opera is passionate about widening access to a young audience
and has a much sought-after GO≤35 membership scheme which offers subsidised
tickets, priority booking, free train transfers, pre-performance parties
and half price programmes.
DIARY OF EVENTS AT WORMSLEY
The Bartered Bride
- 1 29, 31 May, 6, 8, 11, 15, 20, 23, 30 June (start time 6.05pm)
Don Giovanni
-
30 May, 1, 7, 13, 24, 29 June, 3, 6, 12, 14, 18, 21 July (start time
5.45pm)
Fantasio -
14, 16, 22, 27 June, 5, 8, 11, 17, 20 July (start time 6.05pm)
The Turn of the Screw -
1, 4, 7, 13, 15, 19 July (start time 6.35pm)
Vespers of 1610 - 2
4, 25, 26 July (start time 8.30pm)
Tickets £60 - £225 including a suggested but non-obligatory donation of £70 (Vespers £30).
Public booking opens Tuesday 19 March 2019. Book online: www.garsingtonopera.org or Telephone 01865 361636.