Opera North Season Preview: Opera North are their new home at last with ambitious plans for the 2006-2007 season (RJF)

 

 

Since the conclusion of their winter tour in Belfast in April 2005, Opera North’s activities have been severely restricted due to their home at the Grand Theatre Leeds undergoing total refurbishment and technical updating. They visited The Lowry at Salford Quays, and a couple of other venues, in the summer and autumn of 2005 with concert performances of Nabucco and semi staged productions including Duke Bluebeards Castle, featuring John Tomlinson and Sally Burgess and which is the basis of the recently issued recording by Chandos in their Opera in English series. The vibrant performances of Nabucco, featuring Alan Opie in the name part, are currently the basis of a further recording that should make a thrilling CD issue in the same Chandos series

With the promised land of a tentative date for a return to their home theatre set for June, the Company re-instituted their normal spring policy of three productions in 2006. These were prepared and played in neighbouring Bradford before touring to Opera North’s normal venues plus a new one in Aberdeen. Like all, or at least so many building and restoration projects, Opera North’s dates slipped and their return to their newly technically updated and decorated home will now take place on October the 7^th with a new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto. The production by Charles Edward features Alan Opie in the eponymous role, Rafael Rojas as the libidinous Duke and the young Danish Soprano Henriette Bonde-Hanson as the virginal Gilda. I will report on the production and performance as well as the refurbished auditorium during week commencing October 9^th.

Phase 1 of the renovation of opera North’s Grand home, costing £20.7 million, has involved the building of the Opera Centre adjacent to the Leeds Grand Theatre and a major technical upgrade with a new, higher, flying system, orchestra pit as well as office and rehearsal facilities.  The lovely Victorian auditorium has been refurbished with improved sight lines, seating and an air-cooling system and in future will be known as the Yorkshire Bank Auditorium. Phase 2 of the Opera North project will involve the restoration of the adjacent period Assembly Rooms as a key element in the development of the company’s artistic and access programmes. This will run together with the restoration of the front-of-house Victorian heritage and the theatre’s façade. This will cost £10.3 million; it is expected to be completed in early 2008. Together, the two phases should herald an exciting future for the facilities and Opera North, already recognised as being at the forefront of regional operatic activities in the U.K.

The autumn 2006 season will continue with a new production Peter Grimes on October 26^th and Poulenc’s La voix humaine on November 3^rd. The vocally strong and physically imposing Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts sings the name part and is joined by Christopher Purves as Balstrode and Giselle Allan, who sang Rusalka in Opera North’s admired production. Music Director Richard Farnes conducts with Phyllida Lloyd directing. The Poulenc rarity will feature the renowned soprano Joan Rodgers as Elle directed by Deborah Warner. Paul Watkins, who won the Leeds conducting competition in 2002, makes his operatic conducting debut. With various changes of cast, Jonathan Summers takes over as Rigoletto, the trio of productions will tour as follows: -

 

Salford Quays, The Lowry Theatre. November 7^th to 11^th.

Nottingham, Theatre Royal. November 14^th to 18^th.

London. Sadler’s Wells. November 21^st to 25^th.

Newcastle. Theatre Royal. November 28^th to December 3^rd.

The winter 2007 season will feature Tim Supple reviving his 2003 production of The Magic Flute and a revival of Daniel Slater’s 2000 production of The Elixir of Love featuring the English tenor Andrew Kennedy who won the Lieder Prize at the 2005 Cardiff Singer of the World as the lovesick Nemorino. The major production of the winter season will be Monteverdi’s Orfeo, celebrating the 400^th anniversary of the work. What the somewhat iconoclastic director Christopher Alden and his designer Paul Steinberg will make of this seminal work in the operatic oeuvre will be awaited with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension!

The spring season 2007 has Richard Farnes back on the podium for Katya Kabanova on April 21st. Tim Albery is in charge of the revival of his own 1999 production. Giselle Allan takes the title role with Sally Burgess as Kabanicha. This production will be toured to Nottingham (June 7^th), Newcastle (June 24^th) and The Lowry, (June 21^st). This will be followed, on May 7^th, by the captivating double bill of new productions of Purcells Dido and Aeneas sung in English and Stravinsky’s Les Noces sung in Russian. This duo will be performed in Nottingham (June 8^th), Newcastle (June 16^th), The Lowry (June 23^rd), Sheffield’s Lyceum Theatre (June 30^th) and the Alhambra Theatre, Bradford (July 7^th). These theatres will also see another run of Rigoletto with Linda Richardson as Gilda and further performances of Tim Supple’s production of Mozart’s Magic Flute. The foregoing will mean that the audiences of Opera North’s major touring venues of The Lowry, Nottingham and Newcastle will have the opportunity of seeing five very different operas during the touring week. A challenge for them as well as the company of Opera North.

 

 

Robert J Farr