|
|
||
|
News
|
||
|
News |
Dateline: 21st January, 2005
ENO Will Emphasise "English", "National" and "Opera" At the Coliseum, English National Opera's Seán Doran, in his first full season in charge, has outlined the company's artistic direction and its first full season under his leadership. The company will, he says, be emphasising English", "national" and "opera": EnglishIn addition to performing in English, ENO’s precursor, Sadler’s Wells Opera (SWO), established a tradition of performing, regularly commissioning and/or premièring English operas. Continuing this tradition, commitment to English opera will be a defining characteristic of the 2005/06 Season and of future ENO Seasons. In the 60th anniversary year since Sadler’s Wells re-opened its doors in 1945 with the world première of Peter Grimes, ENO adopts Benjamin Britten as house composer and makes English opera the backbone of its programming each Season. Over the next five years the Company will pay tribute to English opera, staging at least one Britten work per season, alongside that of other celebrated British composers. In 2005/06 ENO will produce five English operas from Purcell to Britten.
Doran renews the company's commitment to invest in and explore the art form by commissioning new works in English and by seeking out the best existing new work for the London Coliseum stage each Season, in world or London stage premières. In the 2005/06 Season there will be two new operas in world première productions, one co-commission and one ENO commission. The Season opens with an RTÉ/ENO co-commission, the world stage première of Gerald Barry’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. Following in February 2006 is the world première of Gaddafi by Steve Chandra Savale of Asian Dub Foundation, ENO’s latest commission, which is being developed in the ENO Studio. Including the first ENO revival of John Adams’s Nixon in China, eight operas originally written in the English language will be performed in 2005/06 out of the total of 16 operas in the Season. NationalIn 2005/06, ENO has over 30,000 tickets on sale at £10.00 and under. This is one of the key ways of introducing new audiences and enabling them, as well as existing audiences, to come as often as possible and try out new experiences. With the support of Season Sponsors Sky & Artsworld, ENO is committed to investing in and nurturing the best of British talent and to providing the best possible experience for its audiences through maintaining high artistic standards. Many internationally acclaimed singers, some of whom were nurtured by this Company early in their careers, will be returning to perform alongside the best emerging talent. Of particular note is the return for the first time in many years of Dame Felicity Lott, Felicity Palmer and Graham Clark, whose last appearances with the Company were in 1988 (Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte), 1991 (Jezibaba in Rusalka) and 1992 (Mr Broucek inThe Adventures of Mr Broucek) respectively. Following the creation of the regional opera companies (to which ENO contributed by founding ENO North, which became Opera North), touring is no longer part of ENO’s remit and the Company receives no funding to tour. Opportunities seized by ENO, such as performing Act III of Wagner’s The Valkyrie on the main stage at Glastonbury last year (which was also broadcast by BBC television), help to break down barriers to the way opera is still widely perceived and benefit the profession as a whole, as well as introducing ENO to a wider public and increasing access. ENO and Channel 4 are co-developing the opera Gaddafi for stage and screen, with Mentorn producing the screen version. Peter Moores Foundation has plans to record ENO’s productions of Berg’s Lulu (from the 2004/05 Season), Poulenc’s The Carmelites and Janácek’s The Makropulos Case. OperaThere will be UK opera débuts for four outstanding directors with very different backgrounds during the season:
In addition to the cycle of Britten operas over the next few years, a Monteverdi cycle is planned with co-producers the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston. Commencing with Orfeo in 2005/06, new productions by the same director, Chen Shi-Zheng, will follow over successive Seasons, culminating with Vespers of 1610, which he first staged with the Handel and Haydn Society in 2003. Reviewing this production, The Financial Times wrote: "Shi-Zheng wants to produce a complete Monteverdi cycle: it would be a crime if he didn’t." The hallmark of his direction is the integration of East Asian dance and this will be a characteristic of his Monteverdi cycle for ENO. In 1996 Mark Morris said, "That dance has become a sidebar to opera is unfortunate. I’m reinstating it." ENO welcomes him back to direct the new production of Purcell’s King Arthur on one of the UK’s best dance stages. ENO plans to programme one opera-ballet per Season. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
|
|
|
|
