In addition to the spring season already announced, Opera North has released details of its autumn season at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal.
Our news story of 15 November gives full details of the spring season, which consists of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Rossini’s Cinderella (La Cenerentola) and Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden.
For the autumn the company is reviving a type of programming first tried in 2004 with the Eight Little Greats season. This new variation, The Little Greats, brings six short operas together, from the well-known to rarely performed jewels of the genre. They are Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury, Janáček’s Osud and Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti.
The season aims to explore new links between the operas, with all six productions sharing some common elements of set and lighting design by Charles Edwards, who also directs Pagliacci. Annabel Arden directs L’enfant et les sortilèges and Osud, with the remaining three directed by John Savournin (Trial by Jury), Karolina Sofulak (Cavalleria rusticana) and Matthew Eberhardt (Trouble in Tahiti).
The Chorus of Opera North is involved in five of the six pieces and its members take all the principal roles in Trial by Jury. The ensemble of guest principal singers includes Giselle Allen, Peter Auty, Katie Bray, Richard Burkhard, Wallis Giunta, John Graham-Hall, Quirijn de Lang, Rosalind Plowright, Phillip Rhodes, John Savournin, Joseph Shovelton, Jonathan Stoughton, Ann Taylor, and Fflur Wyn.
The Newcastle dates are:
| Wed 8 Nov | L’enfant et les sortilèges / Osud | 7:15 |
| Thu 9 Nov | Pagliacci / Cavalleria rusticana | 7:15 |
| Fri 10 Nov | Trouble in Tahiti / Trial by Jury | 7:15 |
| Sat 11 Nov | L’enfant et les sortilèges | 2:15 |
| Sat 11 Nov | Pagliacci / Cavalleria rusticana | 7:15 |