| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 15-Jul-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 3: Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts Pelléas et Mélisande |
 Opera at the 2012 Proms began with a performance of Debussy’s only completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande. Conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the production celebrated the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, and marked the 24 years since Gardiner first brought the work to the Royal Albert Hall with the Opéra de Lyon. This time, he was conducting the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, a period orchestra he formed in 1990 with the purpose of accurately performing music of the 19th century.Read full review... | |
| 13-Jul-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 1: An English theme makes for a rousing start |
 The first night of the Proms was, in this year of Olympic celebrations and the Diamond Jubilee, a tribute to all things English, featuring an impressive range of singers and a (somewhat appropriate) relay team of stellar English conductors.
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| 5-May-2012 Leeds Grand Theatre | Opera North stage the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic Carousel |
 Since their staging of Show Boat two decades ago, Opera North have frequently dipped into the world of the musical and the operetta, breathing new life into some of our favourite shows. In recent memory, their creative reinventions of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore and Lehár’s The Merry Widow have proved popular, and now they have turned their hand to the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic Carousel.Read full review... | |
| 25-Mar-2012 University of Leeds: Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall | Kathleen Ferrier Award Winner Kitty Whately in Leeds |
 On Sunday afternoon the most recent recipient of the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Award, Kitty Whately, was welcomed to the Clothworkers’ Hall by Leeds Lieder, an organisation founded in the hope of introducing art song to a new audience. Accompanied by pianist Christopher Glynn, the up-and-coming mezzo soprano performed a varied programme featuring German, French and English songs, delighting the Leeds audience with her beautiful voice and innate understanding of the repertoire.
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| 28-Jan-2012 Leeds Grand Theatre | Opera North present a beautiful, powerful new production of Bellini's Norma |
 Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece Norma was once a staple of the operatic stage, performed by great sopranos such as Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland on a regular basis. Nowadays, despite containing one of the most famous arias of all time, it is performed less frequently. Opera North last staged the work in 1986, but following their recent success with Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, have mounted a new production starring Dutch soprano Annemarie Kremer.
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| 14-Jan-2012 Leeds Grand Theatre | Opera North's Giulio Cesare is a sparkling success |
, Andrew Squires (Slave), Sarah Tynan (Cleopatra). Photo by Trisram Kenton.jpg) The Roman emperor Julius Caesar’s entanglement with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra is one of the best-known love stories of all time, and the operatic re-telling by George Frideric Handel, with its incredible music and universal themes of war, passion and politics, is experiencing a resurgence. In 2005, Glyndebourne mounted an award-winning production of the opera which they revived to great acclaim just four years later, and now Opera North have created an exciting new Giulio Cesare: their first staging of a Handel opera in more than ten years.
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| 10-Dec-2011 Leeds Town Hall | Leeds Festival Chorus and the English Chamber Orchestra perform Handel's Messiah |
 Since its first performance in 1742, Handel's Messiah has become one of the world's most popular and widely performed oratorios. With a biblical libretto which tells the story of Jesus from the Nativity to the Ascension, and stunning, joyous choral parts that lend themselves equally well to small and large choirs, the Messiah has become a festive must-hear. In fact, for many lovers of classical music, Christmas just wouldn't be the same without it.
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| 27-Oct-2011 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | The Royal Opera House celebrate Placido Domingo's forty years of Covent Garden performances |
 ASHMORE.jpg) In 1971, the thirty year-old Placido Domingo made his Covent Garden début as Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca and in the intervening forty years, he has given two hundred and thirty performances in more than twenty-five roles for Royal Opera House audiences.Read full review... | |
| 7-Oct-2011 Leeds College of Music: The Venue | Bright is the Ring of Words opens Leeds Lieder+ with a celebration of music and words |
| Leeds Lieder+, the northern biennial festival of art song, began on Friday night with Bright is the Ring of Words. Advertised as a celebration of British verse, the evening featured settings of the words of Lord Byron, Robert Louis Stevenson and Shakespeare by a diverse range of composers including Mendelssohn, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Richard Strauss, Roger Quilter and John Dankworth. Read full review... | |
| 30-Sep-2011 Leeds Grand Theatre | Opera North's revival of Ruddigore is a visual treat |
 Baritone Thomas Hampson recently quipped that he'd try anything other than Gilbert and Sullivan, echoing the sentiments of many opera fans who are inclined to see the operettas penned by the Victorian duo as the preserve of amateur dramatic societies and school drama clubs. With this in mind, it was somewhat surprising to see Opera North create a new production of Ruddigore back in 2010.Read full review... | |
| 24-Sep-2011 Leeds Grand Theatre | Daniele Rustioni conducts Opera North's revival of Madama Butterfly |
 When Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala in 1904, it was heavily booed. Few who attended that disastrous first performance could have imagined that, more than one hundred years on, it would have evolved into one of the most enduringly popular and widely performed operas in the world.Read full review... | |
| 6-Aug-2011 Temple Newsam | Heritage Opera present Jonathan Dove's new opera, Mansfield Park |
 It's extremely rare to see a small opera company commission a brand new work, but that's exactly what Heritage Opera, who regularly present chamber operas in the north-west of England, have done. They are currently touring the world première of Mansfield Park after fund-raising efforts allowed them to invite celebrated composer Jonathan Dove (The Enchanted Pig, Flight, The Adventures of Pinocchio) to fulfil his life-long dream of composing an opera based on the Jane Austen novel.
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| 17-Jul-2011 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | An all-star cast create opera history in the Royal Opera House's Tosca |
 Ever since the Royal Opera House announced that two performances of its summer revival of Jonathan Kent's production of Tosca would feature an all-star cast, opera lovers all over the world have been desperately trying to get their hands on a golden ticket.
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| 16-Jul-2011 Royal Albert Hall | Antonio Pappano and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia bring William Tell to the Proms |
 On Saturday night, Antonio Pappano and his Roman orchestra and chorus, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, brought us the first opera of the 2011 Proms- Gioachino Rossini's William Tell. More commonly performed as Guglielmo Tell with an Italian libretto, Pappano and Santa Cecilia first began concert performances of this rarely heard original French version in 2010, and have since made a live recording of it for EMI which has received both critical and popular acclaim.Read full review... | |
| 2-Jul-2011 Royal College of Music: Britten Theatre | The Royal College of Music International Opera School perform Così Fan Tutte |
 The Royal College of Music’s International Opera School has long been a training ground for some of the world’s most famous opera stars. Dame Joan Sutherland, Sarah Connolly, Gerald Findlay and Sir Thomas Allen all began their careers there, so it is with great excitement that you attend an RCM Opera School performance, wondering if you are about to witness singers at the beginning of a journey to international success.Read full review... | |
| 27-Jun-2011 Leeds College of Music: The Venue | The London Mozart Trio at Leeds International Jewish Performing Arts Festival |
 The London Mozart Trio have a concert schedule dominated by London venues, so their performance at the Leeds College of Music as part of the city's International Jewish Performing Arts Festival on Monday was a rare opportunity for those outside the capital to hear their beautiful music. Since their formation in 1989, they have attracted critical acclaim for their interpretations of a wide range of pieces, but somewhat surprisingly, they don't play very much Mozart.
Read full review... | |
| 25-Jun-2011 Howard Assembly Room | The Cross in the Mountains: Choral Music in the Age of Wagner's Ring Cycle |
| To add insight and context to their performances of Das Rheingold, Opera North have been staging a number of events exploring Wagner, his music and the production of his operas. On Saturday evening their Howard Assembly Room played host to The Cross in the Mountains, an evening of German choral music composed in the age of the Ring Cycle. Conducted by Opera North Chorus Master Timothy Burke and featuring the wonderful ON chorus and horn section, the audience were taken on a journey through some beautiful Germanic vocal works.
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| 11-Jun-2011 Howard Assembly Room | Dame Anne Evans: I Saw the World End |
| In the run up to their widely anticipated concert staging of Wagner's Das Rheingold this summer, Opera North are providing us with a number of events at their Howard Assembly Room which aim to explore different aspects of the Ring Cycle. From the technicalities of performance to the music which may have influenced Wagner's compositions, there are events for opera lovers of all levels to enjoy, and they began on Saturday night with an evening of words and music from legendary Wagnerian soprano, Dame Anne Evans.
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| 5-May-2011 Leeds Grand Theatre | Opera North search for 'the spark of God' in Janáček's From the House of the Dead |
 In a promotional video for Opera North's new production of From The House of the Dead, director John Fulljames gives us two seemingly opposing views on Leoš Janáček's final opera- that it is “the most intense opera of the twentieth century,” but also a piece in which “very little happens.” Based on the Fyodor Dostoyevsky novel of the same name, the opera is set in a Siberian prison camp and focusses on the daily existence of a handful of its inmates.Read full review... | |
| 16-Apr-2011 Leeds Grand Theatre | Opera North's 'Fidelio'- A Focus on Freedom |
 The concept of freedom is at the heart of Opera North's current production of Fidelio. As soon as you open your programme, you are encouraged by the company's General Director Richard Mantle to consider Beethoven's only opera as having something to say about the struggle for liberty that has been taking place in the Middle East over the past few months.“Opera is perfectly placed to convey the personal experiences of individuals caught up in larger social or political events,” he writes, and it is easy to see why Fidelio, with its prison setting and eventual triumph of good over evil, lends itself particularly well to a comparison with contemporary global events.
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| 9-Apr-2011 Leeds Town Hall | St Matthew Passion |
 Easter wouldn't be complete without a performance of the St Matthew Passion, Johann Sebastian Bach's epic and intense interpretation of the crucifixion. Composed in 1729, the piece sets chapters twenty-six and twenty-seven of the Gospel of St Matthew to beautiful baroque music, and despite being originally created for church performance, its dramatic double chorus parts and beautiful arias and duets have led to it becoming a popular concert piece.Read full review... | |
| 18-Mar-2011 Bridgewater Hall | Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia celebrate the Risorgimento |
 Since taking the reins of the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in 2005, the Music Director of the Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano, has led one of the world's most admired and respected orchestras to dizzy heights of success. Under his baton, the Roman ensemble have travelled the globe, made several award-winning recordings and been named one of the '10 Best Orchestras in the World' by Classic FM magazine.Read full review... | |
| 4-Mar-2011 Howard Assembly Room | Roderick Williams brings 'Life Affirming Music' to the Howard Assembly Rooms |
| Since emerging from the Guildhall School of Music in the early 1990s, Roderick Williams has enjoyed a steady and critically acclaimed career. A reluctant celebrity who prefers to sing in the UK for the sake of his family, he has formed close associations with Scottish Opera, Opera North and English National Opera as well as gaining plaudits for his recitals and performances with some of the country's most popular orchestras. Read full review... | |
| 2-Feb-2011 Leeds Grand Theatre | Opera North stage the UK premiere of Weinberg's The Portrait |
 The operas of Mieczyslaw Weinberg are being pulled out of obscurity. Until the 2010 Bregenz Festival, when director David Pountney placed the composer at the centre of the three-day event and staged an ambitious production of the The Passenger, none of his seven operas had ever been heard outside of Russia. For this reason, Opera North's current production of Weinberg's The Portrait (also directed by Pountney) is very special. It is the first time any of Weinberg's operatic works have ever been staged in the UK.
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| 29-Jan-2011 Leeds Town Hall | Leeds Festival Chorus and the Northern Sinfonia triumph with an evening of Mozart |
 On Saturday night, a large and diverse audience gathered in Leeds Town Hall to hear Leeds Festival Chorus and the Northern Sinfonia perform an all-Mozart programme, which provided an appropriate and atmospheric end to the composer's birthday week. The evening began with the Symphony No.40 in G Minor. Conducted by Simon Wright, the ever-popular piece made for an energetic start to the evening, and showcased what a perfect fit the Northern Sinfonia are for Leeds Town Hall.
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| 22-Jan-2011 Leeds Grand Theatre | Opera North spark debate with new Carmen |
 The popularity of Bizet's 'Carmen' leaves many opera lovers knowing exactly what they want to hear and see before even entering the theatre. We're used to drama and passion, and to the clichéd black lace and bullfights- but what happens when this much-loved classic is placed in the hands of a director known for unconventionality?
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| 17-Jan-2011 Howard Assembly Room | Opera North explore the origins of Carmen with Twilight: Landahlauts |
 Some operas are so well loved and so widely performed that our perception of their origins and influences can become somewhat blurred. We may think of Madama Butterfly, for example, as being firmly in the Italian tradition, overlooking the great lengths to which Puccini went to incorporate the true sound of the Orient into his score. Sourcing traditional recordings from the wife of the Japanese minister in Rome, he absorbed the unusual melodies into his own compositions.Read full review... | |
| 19-Dec-2010 Leeds Grand Theatre | Opera North's new Merry Widow: an antidote to winter blues |
 What clever scheduling by Opera North. In the centre of Leeds the snow is turning grey and slushy, the temperature is ridiculously low and it's dark before mid-afternoon, but inside The Grand Theatre it's a different story- a story which seems specifically designed to lift the winter blues. As soon as conductor Wyn Davies strikes up the orchestra for Act I of this new production of Franz Lehar's ever-popular The Merry Widow, and the curtain rises to reveal a colourful feast for the eyes, you know you've come to the right place for a bit of festive cheer.
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