Opera North has announced five new productions for its 2021/22 season and a programme of live music in the Howard Assembly Room, as it also reopens its buildings in central Leeds following a transformational £18 million capital redevelopment programme, Music Works.
The Company says that the completion of Music Works will see Opera North move back into greatly enhanced and expanded rehearsal facilities in the Howard Opera Centre, as well as opening a new Education Studio. The Howard Assembly Room will reopen in October 2021 for its first events since March 2019, with a diverse artistic programme of gigs, recitals, new commissions, installations, talks and film screenings now matched with improved front-of-house visitor facilities and a new restaurant and bar on New Briggate, Leeds. The transformed estate forms part of Leeds’ heritage quarter surrounding the Grand Theatre, where Opera North is a regular company in residence.
The new 2021/22 season, which is Opera North’s first full season in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, follows a tour of Fidelio and a co-production with Leeds Playhouse of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music in Spring/Summer 2021.
The 2021/22 season opens at Leeds Grand Theatre on 2 October 2021 with a new production of Bizet’s Carmen, conducted by Garry Walker in his first production as Opera North’s new Music Director. The Company’s first Carmen in over a decade is directed by Edward Dick, with American mezzo-soprano Chrystal E. Williams in the title role and Canadian tenor Antoine Bélanger as Don José.
A double-bill of works by Leonard Bernstein sees a revival of his one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti paired with a new co-production of West Side Story Symphonic Dances in collaboration with Phoenix Dance Theatre. Conducted by Antony Hermus, Opera North’s Principal Guest Conductor and choreographed by Phoenix Dance Theatre’s recently appointed Artistic Director Dane Hurst, Symphonic Dances will be an entirely new dance work, interpreting Bernstein’s thrilling music in an exploration of identity and conflict.
Performances of Carmen continue into Winter 2022, joined by a new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, conducted by Garry Walker and directed by the British Nigerian actor/director Femi Elufowoju Jr. in his operatic debut, with Eric Greene singing the title role in a cast also including Sir Willard White and Roman Arndt.
A new production of Handel’s Alcina, Opera North’s first environmentally sustainable production, is conducted by Laurence Cummings and directed by Tim Albery, with Máire Flavin as Alcina and Patrick Terry as Ruggiero.
The year is completed by a rescheduled tour of Wagner’s Parsifal, which will open at Leeds Grand Theatre before touring to concert halls across the country. The Company’s former Music Director, Richard Farnes, returns to Opera North to conduct a cast including Brindley Sherratt as Gurnemanz and Toby Spence as Parsifal, both in role debuts. PJ Harris (Salome) directs this new concert staging, which continues Opera North’s strand of large-scale works presented dramatically in concert halls.
All productions will open at Leeds Grand Theatre before touring.
Howard Assembly Room reopening season
The Music Works redevelopment is creating a new fully accessible entrance, box office, bar and restaurant, public atrium, and improved front-of-house facilities for the Howard Assembly Room, Opera North’s 300-seat venue on New Briggate, Leeds.
Closed since redevelopment work began in March 2019, the Howard Assembly Room will reopen in October 2021. Its eclectic programme bridges the classical and the contemporary, showcasing top international touring artists from a diverse range of genres including jazz, folk, and world music, classical recitals, chamber opera, films, talks, installations and family events.
Artists already confirmed for the Howard Assembly Room’s reopening season include the duo of legendary reeds maestro Courtney Pine and the brilliant, MOBO Award-winning pianist Zoe Rahman, and another virtuoso pairing in Cuban pianist Omar Sosa and Senegalese kora master Seckou Keita.
Leveret, the outstanding trio of Andy Cutting, Sam Sweeney and Rob Harbron, put a thrilling spin on the English tradition, while at the furthest reaches of folk, Richard Dawson brings outernational influences, a wildly original guitar style and a gift for contemporary storytelling. A new commission for Opera North Projects’ FILMusic strand sees Leeds pianist Matthew Bourne performing a new live soundtrack to F. W. Murnau’s 1927 masterpiece Sunrise. In October, for Leeds Light Night 2021, the Howard Assembly Room will be transformed through a new and immersive installation on the theme of environmental crisis, featuring live music, lighting and sound design.
Making Music
As the Music Works redevelopment work enters its final stages, Opera North is today launching a new campaign to drive donations to complete the project and fill the new spaces with music. The names of Making Music supporters will become part of a new installation symbolising a musical score. Wrapping around the central staircase in the new glass atrium, the installation will celebrate the making of music in the heart of the building.
To become part of this new artwork by placing a note, supporters can choose a note size, and add a personal message along with their donation of £250 (small note), £350 (medium note) or £500 (large note), which will help Opera North to create a space for everyone, where talent can be nurtured and developed, where artists can make thrilling music and where audiences can be inspired.
Significantly enhanced facilities for the Company are being created in the revitalised and expanded Howard Opera Centre, named for major donor Dr Keith Howard, with new facilities including a new music rehearsal studio for the Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North, coaching rooms, a new green room for artists, and a new Education Studio to provide a permanent home for the Company’s extensive learning and participation activity. Opening in Summer 2021, initial activity in the Howard Opera Centre will include a wide range of youth training ensembles for young musicians, including the Opera North Youth Company and new Opera North Youth Orchestra.
Funding for the £18 million Music Works programme has come from a range of sources, including a £11.25 million gift from Dr Keith Howard, Opera North’s President and a long-term supporter of the Company, a £1 million donation from t The Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation, who have been joined by a number of other trusts and foundations in giving support, as well as many individuals donating via the Play Your Part campaign. Arts Council England has supported the project with a grant of £499,999 in 2018 through the Small Capital Grants scheme, bolstered in 2020 by a Capital Kickstart award of £500,000 by Arts Council England and DCMS as part of the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund in response to the economic impact of the COVID pandemic on the arts industries.
For more on Music Works: operanorth.co.uk/musicworks
To donate to Making Music and to place a note on the Company’s new artwork: makingmusic.operanorth.co.uk
Accessibility
In the 2021-22 season the Company will double the number of audio-described productions, to four. During the tour of Parsifal to concert halls, pre-recorded audio description will be broadcast to mobile devices during all performances, ensuring all customers can enjoy an opera sung in another language if they are no longer able to read the surtitles. The Company is the first to offer this service after successful trials over the last two years.
Selected performances of Carmen in the Winter season will be offered with BSL interpretation, and following on from the first ever dementia-friendly full-length opera in the country in October 2019, Opera North has programmed a second, this time a matinee of Carmen in October.
All performances throughout the year will be surtitled and will be accompanied by online audio notes, including details of how the staging and costumes look for people who are blind or partially-sighted.
Digital projects
An increased focus on digital projects additionally sees Opera North preparing the Howard Assembly Room to be a digital concert hall, with increased capabilities for capture, streaming and digital broadcast from and within the venue once it reopens. The Company has formed a new project in partnership with Sky Studios, Resonance: Connect, part of the Company’s strand of residencies with artists from black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds. The Sky Studios partnership will create new opportunities for musicians to collaborate with filmmakers, technologists and digital artists on a series of short films. Further digital plans within the year include a broadcast of the new production of Alcina in partnership with the European online opera channel, OperaVision.
Richard Mantle, General Director, Opera North, said “The coming year will be a hugely significant moment for Opera North: a new beginning for the Company as we return to live performance in theatres and concert halls across the North and open our transformed estate following its £18 million redevelopment. A world-class centre for music and the arts, our new spaces in the Howard Opera Centre will for the first time bring young people, community partners, and adults participating in our creative education programmes into the heart of the Company. The newly built music rehearsal studio for the Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North also gives our permanent ensembles a dedicated rehearsal space for the first time, while enabling the re-opened Howard Assembly Room, previously used for much of the year for rehearsals, to expand its programme of events, with a new entrance, public atrium, bar and restaurant revitalising an under-used part of New Briggate in central Leeds.
“The operational impact of COVID-19 on Opera North and all of our partner companies, venues and freelance artists will still continue to be felt, and we will be working very closely with our partner venues to ensure that the safety of audiences, staff and artists is our highest priority as we go into the upcoming season.
“One of our new productions delayed by the pandemic, Carmen, will be our first event back in residence at Leeds Grand Theatre since early 2020. We are delighted that this opening production will be conducted by Garry Walker in his belated debut as our new Music Director, following much success in previous performances with the Company of Billy Budd, The Rite of Spring and The Greek Passion.”
Mainstage artistic programme 2020/21
CARMEN
Georges Bizet
New production, opens Saturday 2 October
Sung in French with English titles
Garry Walker conducts his first production as Opera North’s Music Director, while Edward Dick directs the Company’s first Carmen in more than a decade, following Tosca (2018) and Hansel and Gretel (2017).
American mezzo-soprano Chrystal E. Williams makes her role and Company debut as Carmen. Her recent engagements include her Metropolitan Opera debut, as Maketaten in Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, and the title role in Lady Macbeth of Mtsenk for Birmingham Opera. She is joined by Canadian tenor Antoine Bélanger, a regular guest soloist at Opéra de Montréal, as Don José.
Cast and creative team includes:
Carmen: Chrystal E. Williams
Don José: Antoine Bélanger
Micaela: Camila Titinger (Autumn), Alison Langer (Winter)
Escamillo: Phillip Rhodes (Autumn), Gyula Nagy (Winter)
Frasquita: Amy Freston
Mercedes: Helen Évora
Morales: Christopher Nairne (Autumn), James Davies (Winter)
Remendado: Stuart Laing
Dancairo: Dean Robinson
Zuniga: Matthew Stiff
Conductor: Garry Walker Autumn (ex 17, 19 Nov)
Catriona Beveridge (17, 19 Nov, 18 Feb, 18, 31 Mar)
Antony Hermus Winter (ex 18 Feb, 18, 31 Mar)
Director: Edward Dick
Set Designer: Colin Richmond
Costume Designer: Laura Hopkins
Lighting Designer: Rick Fisher
Bernstein double bill
TROUBLE IN TAHITI
Leonard Bernstein
Revival, opens Sat 16 October
In a double-bill with West Side Story Symphonic Dances
Sung in English with English titles
Baritone Quirijn de Lang (Count Almaviva, The Marriage of Figaro; Fred Graham Kiss Me, Kate) returns as Sam, joined as Dinah for this revival by American mezzo Sandra Piques Eddy, whose previous roles at Opera North have included the title roles in Carmen (2011) and The Coronation of Poppea (2014).
Cast and creative team includes:
Sam: Quirijn de Lang
Dinah: Sandra Piques Eddy
Trio: Laura Kelly-McInroy, Joseph Shovelton, Nicholas Butterfield
Conductor: Antony Hermus (ex 4, 6, 11, 13 Nov)
Martin Pickard (4, 6, 11, 13 Nov)
Director: Matthew Eberhardt
Set designer: Charles Edwards
Costume designer: Hannah Clark
WEST SIDE STORY SYMPHONIC DANCES
Leonard Bernstein
New production, opens Sat 16 October
In a double-bill with Trouble in Tahiti
A collaboration with Phoenix Dance Theatre
This is the second major collaboration between Opera North and Leeds-based, internationally renowned, Phoenix Dance Theatre, following work together in 2019 on Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Principal Guest Conductor Antony Hermus conducts both productions in the Bernstein Double Bill.
Creative team includes:
Conductor: Antony Hermus (ex 4, 6, 11, 13 Nov)
Martin Pickard (4, 6, 11, 13 Nov)
Choreographer: Dane Hurst
RIGOLETTO
Giuseppe Verdi
New production, opens Saturday 22 January
Sung in Italian with English titles
This new production of Rigoletto is conducted by Opera North’s Music Director Garry Walker, and directed by one of the UK’s leading theatre artists, Femi Elufowoju Jr., who makes his opera directing debut. American baritone Eric Greene, whose previous work for Opera North includes Amonasro in Aida and Billy Bigelow in Carousel, sings the title role in a work of shattering power. Russian tenor Roman Arndt and American soprano Jasmine Habersham make Opera North debuts as the Duke and Gilda, while the esteemed Jamaican-born British bass-baritone Sir Willard White returns to the Company as Monterone.
Cast and creative team includes:
Duke of Mantua: Roman Arndt
Rigoletto: Eric Greene
Gilda: Jasmine Habersham
Sparafucile: Callum Thorpe
Maddalena: Alyona Abramova
Count Monterone: Sir Willard White
Marullo: Themba Mvula
Matteo: Borsa Ivan Sharpe
Conductor: Garry Walker ex 19 Feb, 16 Mar
Patrick Milne: 19 Feb, 16 Mar
Director: Femi Elufowoju Jr.
Set and Costume Designer: Rae Smith
Lighting Designer: Bruno Poet
Movement: Laila Diallo
ALCINA
George Frideric Handel
New production, opens Saturday 5 February
Sung in Italian with English titles
Opera North’s first ever production of one of Handel’s most popular operas is directed by Tim Albery. It reunites Albery and designer Hannah Clark with Baroque specialist Laurence Cummings, who led the Company’s highly acclaimed production of Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea in 2014. It will also be Opera North’s first mainstage production to be created from recycled, re-used and second-hand sources, as part of our commitment to environmental responsibility.
Cast and creative team includes:
Alcina: Máire Flavin
Ruggiero: Patrick Terry
Bradamante: Joanna Motulewicz
Morgana: Fflur Wyn
Oronte: Nick Pritchard
Melissa: Claire Pascoe
Conductor: Laurence Cummings
Director: Tim Albery
Set and costume designer: Hannah Clark
Lighting designer: Thomas C. Hase
Video designer: Ian Galloway
PARSIFAL
Richard Wagner
New concert staging, opens Wed 1 June 2022
Sung in German with English titles
Opera North’s first Parsifal is conducted by the Company’s former Music Director Richard Farnes, whose performances of the Opera North Ring cycle in 2016 met with universal acclaim. PJ Harris (Salome) directs this new dramatic concert staging.
The cast is headed by Toby Spence, returning to Opera North following Fidelio (2020/21), with Katerina Karnéus (Fricka, Die Walküre; Herodias, Salome) as Kundry, Brindley Sherratt (Philip II, Don Carlos; Claggart, Billy Budd; Rocco, Fidelio) as Gurnemanz, Robert Hayward (Wotan, Die Walküre; Scarpia, Tosca; Don Pizarro Fidelio) as Amfortas and Eric Greene (Gunther, Götterdämmerung; Amonasro, Aida) as Klingsor.
Cast and creative team includes:
Parsifal: Toby Spence
Kundry: Katarina Karnéus
Gurnemanz: Brindley Sherratt
Amfortas: Robert Hayward
Klingsor: Eric Greene
Conductor: Richard Farnes
Director: PJ Harris
Mainstage performance diary
October – November 2021
All performances start at 7.00pm unless otherwise stated.
Leeds Grand Theatre
Sat 2 Oct Carmen
Sat 9 Oct 3pm Carmen
Sat 16 Oct Bernstein Double Bill
Tue 19 Oct Carmen
Wed 20 Oct Bernstein Double Bill
Thu 21 Oct Carmen
Fri 22 Oct Bernstein Double Bill
Sat 23 Oct Carmen
Thu 28 Oct Carmen
Fri 29 Oct Bernstein Double Bill
Sat 30 Oct Bernstein Double Bill
Dementia-friendly performance
Tue 26 Oct 1.30pm Carmen
Theatre Royal, Newcastle
Wed 3 Nov Carmen
Thu 4 Nov Bernstein Double Bill
Fri 5 Nov Carmen
Sat 6 Nov Bernstein Double Bill
The Lowry, Salford Quays
Wed 10 Nov Carmen
Thu 11 Nov Bernstein Double Bill
Fri 12 Nov Carmen
Sat 13 Nov Bernstein Double Bill
Theatre Royal, Nottingham
Wed 17 Nov Carmen
Thu 18 Nov Bernstein Double Bill
Fri 19 Nov Carmen
Sat 20 Nov Bernstein Double Bill
January – April 2022
All performances start at 7.00pm
Leeds Grand Theatre
Sat 22 Jan Rigoletto
Sat 29 Jan Rigoletto
Fri 4 Feb Rigoletto
Sat 5 Feb Alcina
Tue 8 Feb Alcina
Fri 11 Feb Rigoletto
Sat 12 Feb Carmen
Tue 15 Feb Alcina
Wed 16 Feb Carmen
Thu 17 Feb Alcina
Fri 18 Feb Carmen
Sat 19 Feb Rigoletto
The Lowry, Salford Quays
Wed 9 Mar Rigoletto
Thu 10 Mar Carmen
Fri 11 Mar Alcina
Sat 12 Mar Rigoletto
Theatre Royal, Nottingham
Wed 16 Mar Rigoletto
Thu 17 Mar Alcina
Fri 18 Mar Carmen
Sat 19 Mar Rigoletto
Theatre Royal, Newcastle
Wed 23 Mar Rigoletto
Thu 24 Mar Alcina
Fri 25 Mar Carmen
Sat 26 Mar Rigoletto
Hull New Theatre
Thu 31 Mar Carmen
Fri 1 Apr Rigoletto
Sat 2 Apr Carmen
June 2022
All performances start at 4.00pm
Leeds Grand Theatre
Wed 1 Jun Parsifal
Sat 4 Jun Parsifal
Tue 7 Jun Parsifal
Fri 10 Jun Parsifal
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Sun 12 Jun Parsifal
Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham
Wed 15 Jun Parsifal
Sage Gateshead
Sat 18 Jun Parsifal
Royal Festival Hall, London
Sun 26 Jun Parsifal
Main image: Mezzo soprano Chrystal E. Williams who will be singing Carmen
