Opera North has announced a year of cultural encounters and myths retold, in eight productions for its 2022–23 season.
The season begins in September 2022 with a revival of Alessandro Talevi’s Belle Époque production of La traviata, featuring two young international casts across its tour. Also revived for winter 2023 is Edward Dick’s Tosca, with Giselle Allen and Robert Hayward reprising their roles as Tosca and Scarpia and Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro making her Opera North debut.
Opera North’s longstanding collaborative relationship with South Asian Arts-uk will produce a staging of Monteverdi’s Orpheus. It will be directed by young British Asian director and dramaturg Anna Himali Howard, with sets and costumes by Leslie Travers, relocating the mythic fields of Thrace to a British garden. The creative team includes artistic consultant Ustad Dharambir Singh MBE, with musical direction by Laurence Cummings and composer and sitar player Jasdeep Singh Degun. Nicholas Watts sings the title role of Orpheus.
British mezzo Alice Coote returns to Opera North in a concert version of another retelling of the Orpheus myth, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, which will tour alongside La traviata and Orpheus, originally performed for film and radio broadcast during lockdown in 2021, with Alice Coote (Orfeo) joining returning guest soloists Fflur Wyn (Euridice) and Daisy Brown (Amor), the Orchestra of Opera North and Principal Guest Conductor Antony Hermus.
Winter 2023 will see Opera North’s first ever presentation of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, in a co-production with Gothenburg Opera. London-based Greek director Rodula Gaitanou and set and costume designer George Souglides set the Prologue within a bustling film studio. The cast, conducted by Antony Hermus, includes company debuts by Elizabeth Llewellyn as Prima Donna / Ariadne and Hanna Hipp as the Composer, with Erin Caves (Don José, Carmen, 2021) as Tenor / Bacchus.
Music Director Garry Walker takes up the baton for David Pountney’s classic staging of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen. Elin Pritchard returns to Opera North as Vixen Sharp-Ears, with Heather Lowe as Fox.
Opening in May 2023, Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers will be the latest in Opera North’s concert stagings, conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren and directed by Matthew Eberhardt.
The final new production of the season is a contemporary dance staging of Mozart’s Requiem in collaboration with Phoenix Dance Theatre. Music Director Garry Walker conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North in Mozart’s final work, in a production choreographed by Dane Hurst which will draw on South African influences.