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Opera North: A Preview of the 2008-2009 Season (RJF)


Opera North will celebrate its thirtieth birthday in the coming 2008-2009 season with nine main stage productions as well as concert performances of Richard Strauss’s Elektra. The 2007-2008 season was particularly exciting with performances of operas with a Shakespeare theme. As well as a reprise of an earlier production of Falstaff the year concluded with new productions, all based on one physical set, although few would have guessed it, of Verdi’s Macbeth, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette. The year also brought the excitement of a world premiere, Jonathan Dove’s The Adventures of Pinocchio. Add the Albery production of Madama Butterfly and a reprise of the award winning production of Peter Grimes, with Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts repeating his searing portrayal of the title role, and it was an excellent opportunity for true opera lovers to expand their experiences. There were full houses for the Butterfly and Grimes at Salford’s Lowry, the largest of the tour venues, and likewise elsewhere. However, by the spring season and the credit crunch biting it was disappointing to see Gounod’s lovely melodies in Romeo et Juliette, as beautiful as in Faust, enjoyed by a very sparse house at The Lowry.

Opera North’s 2008-2009 season started on September 26^th at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, with a reprise of Christopher Alden’s 2002 production of Puccini’s Tosca. The work is sometimes referred to as a shabby little shocker. Well, that may be an understatement in Alden’s typically iconoclastic view that takes the work into a brutality against women that even the womanising Puccini might have had second thoughts about. As Opera North’s General Director says, Alden’s productions are always challenging! Rafael Rojas repeats his Cavaradossi, Robert Hayward is Scarpia and the American soprano Takesha Meshé Kizart Tosca, the fraught and jealous woman of the title. Perhaps as a light relief after such a production of Tosca, and to coincide with the 2008 American Presidential election, next up in Leeds on October 4^th is George Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing. This is to be followed in January by its sequel Let ‘em Eat Cake; Caroline Gawn directs both operas. The autumn trio concludes the Shakespearean theme with Bellini’s take on the Romeo and Juliette story, I Capuletti e I Montecchi. Sung in Italian this is an all too rare excursion into belcanto territory for Opera North. The role of Romeo in Bellini’s opera is a ‘trousers’ role and is sung by the mezzo Sarah Connolly. Marie Arnet replaces the earlier advertised Sarah Tynan as Giuletta; the opera is directed by Orpha Phelan and conducted by Manlio Benzi in his debut with the Company. The first night is October 21^st with four further performances to November 1^st, the last night of the Leeds autumn season after which the Company goes on tour.

The Opera North autumn tour includes five-night seasons at The Lowry, Salford Quays from November 4^th, the Theatre Royal Newcastle from November 11^th and concludes at the Theatre Royal Nottingham from November 18^th.  Each venue will see two performances of Tosca and and I Capuleti e i Montecchi and one of Gerswin’s Of Thee I Sing.

The winter season opens in Leeds on January 16^th with a world premiere, the second in successive seasons, of Skin Deep by David Sawer and Armando Iannucci in a collaboration between Opera North, Komische Oper, Bregenzer Festspiele and Royal Danish Opera. Skin Deep is described as an operetta. It follows on from the composer’s success at English National Opera in 2002 with his From Morning to Midnight. Baritone Geoffrey Dalton will sing the role of the egomaniacal Doctor (sic) and Janis Kelly his wife. Sung in English, the operetta will be directed by Richard Jones and conducted by Opera North’s Music Director, Richard Farnes. This World Premiere will be joined by the British premiere of Gershwin’s Let ‘em Eat Cake on January 29^th with Wyn Davies conducting and, as noted, directed by Caroline Gawn. William Dazeley, Bibi Heal and the actor Steven Beard, also appear in more performances of Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing, which will run parallel to its Gershwin colleague in this winter season and on tour.

The winter tour takes in visits to Sadler's Wells from 17 Feb, The Lowry, Salford Quays from 25 February and the Theatre Royal Newcastle from March 4^.. Just to blow any bel canto or operetta dust from vocal chords or brass tubes, Opera North will present concert performances of Richard Strauss’ Elektra at Leeds Grand Theatre on December 11^th and 14^th, The Sage Gateshead on January 25^th and Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall on February 1^st. Susan Bullock will sing the eponymous role having sung the composer’s vocally demanding Salome at Covent Garden and La Scala among other illustrious venues. Richard Farnes conducts.

The spring season 2009 opens in Leeds on 18^th April with Shostakovich’s Paradise Moscow, a version of the composer’s Cheryomuski, a comic satire on corrupt Party officialdom and the Stalinist Soviet mania for urban planning. Opera North first presented this David Pountney production in 2001. After the season it is going on to the Bregenz Festival where Pountney, author of this English version, is Artistic Director.

Opera North moves back to more traditional opera fair with its final two productions of the 2008-2009 season. The first is a further revival of Verdi’s Don Carlos in Tim Albery’s 1993 production of the 1884 four-act version of the opera. When last revived in 1998 Alastair Miles sang Philip. This time round he shares the role with Brindley Sherratt. Don Carlos was originally composed in French for Paris in 1867 as a five act Grand Opera to coincide with the Great Exhibition in that city. The five-act length was considered excessive with music being jettisoned even before the first night to ensure Parisians did not miss their last trains to the suburbs! Verdi made several re-writings and revisions over the next twenty years in efforts to make Don Carlos more acceptable to theatre managements and audiences. The shorter and equally grand Aida of 1871 did not make his task any easier. These changes are detailed in part four of my Verdi Conspectus (see article). This Opera North production is based on the four-act reduction and revision Verdi made for performances, in Italian, at La Scala in 1884. As when first seen in 1993, the production is sung in English in this revival. Julian Gavin sings the title role, William Dazeley moves from Throttlebottom in the Gershwin musicals to the role of Rodrigo, the upright soldier who dreams of freeing Flanders from the Spanish yoke and the Catholic Inquisition. Janis Watson, in her company debut, sings Elisabeth in Leeds from May 2^nd whilst Susannah Glanville will sing the last three performances on tour. Music Director Richard Farnes is on the rostrum and will doubtless give Verdi his full dramatic due.

The final production of the thirtieth anniversary year is a new English version of Mozart’s too rarely seen The Abduction from the Seraglio by Tim Hopkins and Nicholas Rideout using Amanda Holden’s existing English translation. Allan Clayton, who is singing the title role in Albert Herring at Glyndebourne, sings Belmonte. Nicholas Sharratt sings Pedrillo and Elena Xanthoudakis, in her Opera North debut, Blonde. Clive Bayley, well known to the Company sings Osmin. Rory Macdonald conducts the production that opens in Leeds on May 20^th. 

The spring tour takes in visits to The Lowry, Salford Quays from June 2^nd and the Theatre Royal Newcastle from June 9^th.  Don Carlos and The Abduction from the Seraglio will be presented twice at each venue and Paradise Moscow once.

Opera North will conclude its opera season at the Festspielhaus, Bregenz, Austria on August 15, 16^th and 17^th with Paradise Moscow and the Gershwin musicals Of Thee I Sing and Skin Deep.

With the large majority of the productions being sung in English, and Opera North still eschewing surtitles for vernacular performances, the challenge for the singers will be one of clarity of diction. The challenge for opera enthusiasts in this tightly constrained economic period might be to choose their priorities. In posting this preview I might hope to encourage some forward financial planning from Opera North’s supporters so as to enable them to take full advantage from the typically interesting opera fare on offer by the Company in this celebratory 2008-2009 season.

Robert J Farr

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