2012 – 2013

Don Giovanni Mozart

Faust Gounod

The Makropulos Case Janáček

Otello Verdi

La clemenza di Tito Mozart

La voix humaine Poulenc

Dido and Aeneas Purcell

After Christmas, we pair two operas, that, although they were written almost 300 hundred years apart, seem made for each other. Both Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Poulenc’s La voix humaine offer equally heart-rending takes on the theme of a woman abandoned by her lover.

And so to those anniversaries. Verdi is of course a mainstay of any major opera company, and Opera North has performed eleven of his worksover the years. It may therefore come as something of a surprise to realise that his late tragic masterpiece Otello is not among them. We have chosen our moment carefully: there seemed to be no better time to present our first production of what many consider to be Verdi’s supreme operatic achievement than in 2013.

Both our other anniversary composers figure strongly later in the year. Wagner takes his place in our programme with Siegfried, the third opera in our ongoing Ring cycle, and our celebration of Benjamin Britten – the greatest English opera composer since Purcell – culminates in a season long ‘Festival of Britten’ in the autumn of 2013 – more about that elsewhere in this brochure. Looking further ahead, we are already planning new productions of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West and Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro for 2014.

Bringing all these wonderful operas to the stage are many of today’s leading operatic artists, some familiar and well-established, others new and exciting additions to the Opera North family. We hope that you will join us often in the months ahead to celebrate opera.

A spirit of optimism infuses Opera North’s2012/13 season, as we celebrate opera in all its extraordinary richness and diversity. 2013 is the year of threeenormously significant operatic anniversaries: it will be 200 years since the birth of both Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, and 100 years since the birth of Benjamin Britten. All three composers will feature in our repertoire in 2013.

We also celebrate the conclusion of two ongoing cycles of work that have occupied Opera North for several years. In late summer we complete the set of the mature Janáček operas with a new production of The Makropulos Case, which opens at this year’s Edinburgh Festival in August before joining the repertoire of our autumn season tour. Then in January we open a new production of the only mature Mozart opera that we have yet to perform, La clemenza di Tito.

The 2012/13 season announced here is slightly shorter than those of previous years. This is because it marks the transition to a new pattern in which our performing year will, commencing with the 2013/14 season, coincide with the financial year. This will help us plan more securely in what is, and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future, a challenging financial environment.

Nevertheless, this brochure includes seven operaspresented in no fewer than six new productions. In the autumn, The Makropulos Case is joined by Mozart’s darkly comic ‘dramma giocoso’ Don Giovanni and by our first production of Gounod’s Faust in more than 20 years, a work that has been among the most frequently requested by Opera North audiences over the years.

Celebrating opera

Richard Mantle General Director

Richard Farnes Music Director

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1787

As he seduces his way across Europe, bedding 1003 women in Spain alone, Don Giovanni’s libertinism is a challenge not only to human morality, but also to God. From an old Spanish potboiler Mozart and his librettist Da Ponte forgeda dramma giocoso without parallel. Dark comedyvies with tense drama, and the beauty and terror of the score are evidence of a supreme musical dramatist at the height of his powers, divinely (and perhaps diabolically) inspired.

Opera North’s first Don Giovanni for seven yearsis directed by Alessandro Talevi, whose insightfulproduction of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw wasone of the highlights of the 2009/10 season.

New production

Don Giovanni

Cast includes:Don Giovanni William Dazeley Leporello Alastair Miles / Matthew Hargreaves (14, 17, 21, 24 November) Donna Anna Meeta RavalDonna Elvira Elizabeth Atherton / Maribeth Diggle (1 November)Don Ottavio Christopher TurnerZerlina Claire WildMasetto Oliver DunnIl Commendatore Michael Druiett

Conductor Tobias Ringborg / Anthony Kraus (1, 7, 17 November)Director Alessandro TaleviSet and Costume Designer Madeleine BoydLighting Designer Matthew HaskinsChoreographer Victoria Newlyn Lasts approximately 3 hours Sung in Italian with English titles

Leoš Janáček 1926

‘A 300-year-old beauty – and eternally young – but only burnt-out feeling. Cold as ice. About such a woman I shall write an opera.’Leoš Janáček

One hundred years after the death of Baron Prus, a battle rages over his inheritance. The true heirto the fortune remains a mystery, until the famous opera singer Emilia Marty reveals the whereabouts of a lost will. The fascinating ‘EM’ has a secret of her own: when a child, she was given a potion granting her 300 years of life. Now, it’s wearing off. Confronted with her own mortality at last, she starts to question the value of everlasting life.

Janáček’s opera is both a mystery thriller and a meditation on immortality and desire. The beguiling, powerfully original score mixes terse drama with glowing lyricism, the everyday with the unearthly. With a top-flight international cast and creative team, this production is the culmination of Opera North’s cycle of Janáček’s major operas.

Cast includes:Emilia Marty Ylva Kihlberg Albert Gregor Paul Nilon Vítek Mark Le BrocqKristina Stephanie CorleyJaroslav Prus Robert HaywardJanek Adrian DwyerDr Kolenatý James CreswellTechnician Matthew HargreavesCleaning Woman Sarah PringHauk-Šendorf Nigel RobsonChambermaid Rebecca Afonwy-Jones

Conductor Richard FarnesDirector Tom CairnsSet and Costume Designer Hildegard BechtlerLighting Designer Bruno Poet Lasts approximately 2 hours Sung in English with English titles

New production

The Makropulos Case

Charles Gounod 1859

Faust is a man of middle age who has grown tired of life and yearns only for sensual pleasure and for his lost youth. He summons up Méphistophélès,who agrees to grant his desires – but at the priceof his eternal soul. An innocent woman, Marguerite, falls victim to this diabolical pact when she is seduced by Faust: the result is her destruction. But whilst for Marguerite there is hope of redemption, for Faust there is none.

Like many artists in 19th-century Europe – among them his countryman Berlioz – Gounod was fascinated with Goethe’s great Faust drama; from it, he fashioned an opera distinctively French, overflowing with memorable melodies. It was an instant hit with audiences throughout the continent, and remains, alongside Carmen, one of the most popular of French operas. Ran Braun and Rob Kearley’s new production stresses the timeless resonance of one of the great legends of western culture.

New production

Faust

Cast includes:Faust Peter Auty Méphistophélès James Creswell Marguerite Juanita LascarroValentin Marcin BronikowskiWagner Paul GibsonSiébel Robert Anthony GardinerMarthe Sarah Pring

Conductor Stuart StratfordDirectors Ran Arthur Braun & Rob KearleySet and Visual Designer Ran Arthur BraunCostume Designer Sue WillmingtonLighting Designer David Cunningham Lasts approximately 3 hours Sung in French with English titles

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1791

La clemenza di Tito is a tale of erotic obsession and divided loyalties, set in Ancient Rome. The powerful, alluring Vitellia has designs on the Emperor Tito, and is provoked to fury when he opts to marry someone else. She fans the flames of rebellion, and demands his assassination at the hands of her doting lover Sesto, Tito’s trusted confidant. Torn between loyalty to his friend and emperor and his fascination with the hypnotic Vitellia, Sesto makes a choice that tests Tito’s forgiving nature to breaking point.

Mozart received the commission for Tito whenhe was already underway with The Magic Flute,and this opera, composed for the coronation celebrations of the new Emperor of Bohemia, shares with that work the directness and simplicity typical of his late style. John Fulljames,Associate Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House, directs Opera North’s first production of Mozart’s sublime opera seria.

New production

La clemenza di Tito

Cast includes:Tito Paul Nilon Vitellia Annemarie Kremer Servilia Fflur WynSesto Helen LepalaanAnnio Kathryn RudgePublio Henry Waddington

Conductor Douglas BoydDirector John FulljamesSet and Costume Designer Conor MurphyLighting Designer Bruno PoetProjection Designer Finn Ross Lasts approximately 2 hours 45 mins Sung in Italian with English titles

A co-production with Opéra national de Lorraine, Nancy

Supported by the Friends of Opera North

Giuseppe Verdi 1887

Iago, an ensign in the Venetian army, is a man who bears a grudge. When his general, Otello, passes him over for promotion in favour of Cassio, Iago’s festering resentment quickly turns to downright malice. He poisons Otello’s mind with suspicion, and step by step, leads Otello to believe that his young wife Desdemona is in love with the young and handsome Cassio. And so Iago, a man consumed by envy, makes of Otello a monster of murderous jealousy.

Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito transmute Shakespeare’s great tragedy of a man who loved not wisely but too well into one of the crowning glories of Italian opera. The intense passions unleashed in the play are only enhanced by theconcentrated power of Verdi’s music. This new production reunites the production team of director Tim Albery and designer Leslie Travers who created Opera North’s recent, widely acclaimed Giulio Cesare; Music Director Richard Farnes conducts.

New production

Otello

Cast includes:Otello Ronald Samm Desdemona Elena Kelessidi Iago David KempsterCassio Michael Wade LeeEmilia Ann TaylorRoderigo Christopher TurnerLodovico Henry Waddington

Conductor Richard FarnesDirector Tim AlberySet and Costume Designer Leslie TraversLighting Designer Thomas C Hase Lasts approximately 2 hours 45 minsSung in Italian with English titles

A co-production with Scottish Opera

Supported by the

Supported by the Opera North Future Fund

Henry Purcell 1689

Aeneas, a Trojan prince who has escaped the devastation of his city at the hands of the Greeks, lands in Carthage where Dido is queen. She falls deeply in love with him, but evil forces are at work,bent on her destruction. Aeneas is tricked into abandoning her, and overwhelmed with grief, she dies.

Purcell takes a universal epic and makes of it an intimate human drama, packing a magnificently rich variety of music into the work’s hour-long duration, much of it composed expressly to be danced. This concise masterpiece stood unchallenged as the finest English opera for morethan three centuries and there is still no morepowerfully moving expression of noble resignationin the face of death than Dido’s great lament ‘When I am laid in earth’. Pamela Helen Stephen, who sang the title role in Opera North’s recent production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, heads the cast in Aletta Collins’ deeply moving production.

Dido and Aeneas

Cast includes:Dido Pamela Helen Stephen Belinda Amy Freston Sorceress Heather ShippSpirit Jake Arditti

Conductor Wyn DaviesDirector/ Choreographer Aletta Collins Set Designer Giles CadleCostume Designer Gabrielle DaltonLighting Designer Bruno Poet Lasts approximately 1 hour Sung in English

Dido and Aeneas is presented in a double bill with La voix humaine

Francis Poulenc 1959

A woman is sprawled alone on her bed. ‘It looks like the scene of a murder’ said Jean Cocteau, who wrote the play on which Francis Poulenc’s opera is based. But the woman isn’t dead. She gets up and makes to leave, when the phone rings.It is her ex-lover. During the next 40 minutes we hear one side of an increasingly desperate conversation in which the woman tries anything to win him back. But it’s no use – she can’t get through to him. He hangs up, and she’s left whispering ‘Je t’aime’ to nobody.

La voix humaine is short in length and high on emotional impact. Through the lone voice of the woman, Poulenc expresses all the pain and fear of rejection in the rawest fashion, whilst enveloping her voice in music of caressing warmth and sensuality. Lesley Garrett makes her return to the operatic stage in a work of rare originality and stark emotional honesty.

New production

La voix humaine

Cast:Elle Lesley Garrett

Conductor Wyn DaviesDirector Aletta Collins Lasts approximately 40 minutes Sung in English

La voix humaine is presented in a double bill with Dido and Aeneas

January – March 2013All performances start at 7.30pm unless otherwise stated.

Leeds Grand TheatreWed 16 Jan OtelloThu 24 Jan OtelloWed 30 Jan OtelloThu 31 Jan La clemenza di TitoFri 1 Feb OtelloSat 2 Feb La clemenza di TitoWed 13 Feb OtelloThu 14 Feb La voix humaine / Dido and AeneasSat 16 Feb Otello 2.30pm Sun 17 Feb La voix humaine / 4.00pm Dido and Aeneas Tue 19 Feb La voix humaine / Dido and AeneasWed 20 Feb La clemenza di TitoThu 21 Feb La voix humaine / Dido and AeneasFri 22 Feb La clemenza di TitoSat 23 Feb La voix humaine / Dido and Aeneas

Theatre Royal NewcastleTue 26 Feb La voix humaine / Dido and Aeneas Wed 27 Feb OtelloThu 28 Feb La clemenza di TitoFri 1 Mar La voix humaine / Dido and AeneasSat 2 Mar Otello

Grand Opera House, BelfastTue 5 Mar La voix humaine / Dido and AeneasWed 6 Mar OtelloThu 7 Mar La clemenza di TitoFri 8 Mar La voix humaine / Dido and AeneasSat 9 Mar Otello

The Lowry, Salford QuaysTue 12 Mar La voix humaine / Dido and AeneasWed 13 Mar OtelloThu 14 Mar La clemenza di TitoFri 15 Mar La voix humaine / Dido and AeneasSat 16 Mar Otello

Theatre Royal NottinghamTue 19 Mar La voix humaine / Dido and AeneasWed 20 Mar OtelloThu 21 Mar La clemenza di TitoFri 22 Mar La voix humaine / Dido and AeneasSat 23 Mar Otello

August – November 2012All performances start at 7.30pm unless otherwise stated.

Performance Diary

Edinburgh Festival TheatreSat 11 Aug The Makropulos Case 7.15pm

Mon 13 Aug The Makropulos Case 7.15pm

Leeds Grand TheatreFri 28 Sep Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Fri 5 Oct Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Fri 12 Oct Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Sat 13 Oct Faust 7.00pm

Wed 17 Oct Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Thu 18 Oct The Makropulos CaseFri 19 Oct Faust 7.00pm

Sat 20 Oct Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Tue 23 Oct Faust 7.00pm

Wed 24 Oct The Makropulos CaseThu 25 Oct Faust 7.00pm

Fri 26 Oct Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Sat 27 Oct The Makropulos Case Wed 31 Oct Faust 7.00pm

Thu 1 Nov Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Fri 2 Nov The Makropulos CaseSat 3 Nov Faust 7.00pm

The Lowry, Salford QuaysTue 6 Nov Faust 7.00pm

Wed 7 Nov Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Thu 8 Nov The Makropulos Case Fri 9 Nov Faust 7.00pm

Sat 10 Nov Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Theatre Royal NewcastleTue 13 Nov Faust 7.00pm

Wed 14 Nov Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Thu 15 Nov The Makropulos Case Fri 16 Nov Faust 7.00pm

Sat 17 Nov Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Theatre Royal NottinghamTue 20 Nov Faust 7.00pm

Wed 21 Nov Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Thu 22 Nov The Makropulos Case Fri 23 Nov Faust 7.00pm

Sat 24 Nov Don Giovanni 7.00pm

Festival of Britten 2013

In 2013, Opera North launches a major celebration of the achievement of Benjamin Britten, the greatest English opera composer since Henry Purcell. The Company will be mounting productions of four of Britten’s works for the stage, spanning his operatic career from Peter Grimes (1945) to his final opera Death in Venice (1973), and including the comedies Albert Herring (1947) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960). Two of these productions – Albert Herring and Death in Venice – will be new to the Company, whilst Peter Grimes and A Midsummer Night’s Dream are revivals of productions that won widespread acclaim on their first outings.

Appearing in the Festival of Britten is a host of distinguished artists, including the singers Dame Josephine Barstow, Giselle Allen, Robert Hayward, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, Alan Oke and Peter Savidge; the conductors Richard Farnes and Jac van Steen; and the directors Martin Duncan, Phyllida Lloyd and Yoshi Oida.

Full details of Opera North’s Festival of Britten will be announced in November 2012.

Peter Grimes Albert Herring A Midsummer Night’s DreamDeath in Venice

Opera North LimitedGrand Theatre46 New BriggateLeeds LS1 6NU UK(Registered Office)

Tel +44 (0) 113 243 9999Fax +44 (0) 113 244 0418info@operanorth.co.uk

Registered Charity No. 511726© Opera North 2012

The information in this brochure is published in good faith, and is correct at the time of going to print (May 2012), but changes may occasionally be necessary. In the event of unforeseen circumstances, Opera North reserves the right to change casts or performances.

Photographs on pages 16 and 17 by Bill Cooper (Peter Grimes) and Tristram Kenton (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).

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