Opera North Announces New Season Celebrating Talent, Creativity And Storytelling

Opera North has announced its repertoire for the year ahead as it celebrates the power of opera to tell captivating stories through some of the most exciting music ever written.

This year, we’re championing the next generation of talent as we welcome our Youth Company to the main stage to open the season in Leeds. We’ll be celebrating strong women in our creative teams and on the stage - and continuing our commitment to creative collaborations to produce exciting new work for our audiences to enjoy.

We’re proud to have our own full-time Chorus and Orchestra. Both perform not only in the theatre, where many of our Chorus members take on named roles, but also in other venues across the country. Our programme of films with live music has introduced a whole new audience in Leeds to the joy of hearing an orchestra play, and we’re delighted to be offering both Amadeus and Psycho with live orchestra at Leeds Grand Theatre in October.Laura Canning, General Director, Opera North

Celebrating Young Talent

September sees the UK premiere of the ‘Hamburg’ version of Dame Judith Weir’s opera The Secret of the Black Spider performed by the Opera North Youth Company.

This is the first time an opera by a female composer has been performed on the main stage at Opera North and the first time Opera North’s talented young people have opened the season both on the stage and in the orchestra pit.

Sung in English, performances will take place over two consecutive days at Leeds Grand Theatre.

Celebrating Collaboration

Susanna – Handel - a new production in partnership with Phoenix Dance Theatre

Opera North partners with its Leeds neighbours Phoenix Dance Theatre for the fourth time to bring one of the most operatic of Handel’s English oratorios to the stage. Dance and opera are combined in a powerful contemporary reimagining of the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders. All performances will include creative integrated BSL signing.

Celebrating Classic Opera

La bohème – Puccini

Phyllida Lloyd’s acclaimed production perfectly captures student life in Paris in the early 1960s - but equally it does not shy away from depicting the devastation death brings when it touches the lives of a group of young friends.

Celebrating Contemporary Creatives

Pass the Spoon – David Fennessy

Undoubtedly the craziest ‘sort-of-opera’ offered this side of Christmas. Set on a daytime cookery programme, hosts June Spoon and Phillip Fork – assisted by a manic-depressive egg and a highly-strung banana – must prepare a meal for Mr Granules, a monstrously demanding diner whose appetite knows no bounds.

Served up by composer David Fennessy, artist David Shrigley and director Nicholas Bone, Pass the Spoon is a darkly comic feast of words (spoken and sung), music and puppetry, made with decidedly adult ingredients. This will be the first major revival since its premiere at Glasgow’s Tramway in 2011 in a production specially conceived for the Howard Assembly Room.

Celebrating Strong Women

The Marriage of Figaro - Mozart

A brand-new production of The Marriage of Figaro, which is surely the quintessential country house comedy, as well as being one of Mozart’s most popular operas. The composer’s sublime score fizzes with high spirits while also plumbing the depths of emotion to express both the joy and pain of love and desire.

This new production marks the Opera North debut of Louisa Muller who will be directing a cast of singers who are also new to the company, including Hera Hyesang Park as Susanna, Liam James Karai as Figaro, Gabriella Reyes as Countess Almaviva, Hongni Wu as Cherubino and Jamie Woollard as Antonio. They will be joined by two returnees: James Newby (Demetrius, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2024) as Count Almaviva and Katherine Broderick (Brünnhilde, Siegfried, 2016) as Marcellina. This will be the first time Opera North has performed the opera in the original Italian.

Alongside the main production, Whistle Stop Opera: Marriage of Figaro, a short, fun, interactive version, will tour to venues across the North in the autumn.

Celebrating Powerful Stories

Peter Grimes – Britten

Although rooted in a small fishing community on the east coast of England, the conflict at the heart of Britten’s sea-swept opera is universal. The fisherman Peter Grimes is an outsider, torn between the dream of a conventional life with Ellen Orford, a local schoolteacher, and the truth of his own nature – at times visionary, at others violent. For the rest of the community, he is a channel for their worst fears and their deepest desires.

Winner of the South Bank Show Opera Award, Phyllida Lloyd’s soul-searing production was hailed as an Opera North classic when it was first performed. John Findon sings the title role, while Philippa Boyle and Blaise Malaba make their company debuts as Ellen Orford and Hobson.

Celebrating Young Opera-Goers

The Big Opera Mystery – for children aged 5-12 and their families

Building on the success of The Big Opera Adventure which delighted younger audiences last year, The Big Opera Mystery opens in Leeds in October, before touring to Newcastle, Salford and Nottingham. Mini sleuths are invited to put their crime-solving skills to the test as they try to catch an expert thief, all to the accompaniment of some amazing operatic arias.

Written and directed by Jonathan Ainscough with design by Bek Palmer, this new musical extravaganza features live music from the Orchestra of Opera North and provides the perfect introduction to opera for everyone.