Opera North Announces 2015-2016 Season, Featuring KISS ME, KATE, INTO THE WOODS, and More!

Opera North today announces its mainstage work for the 2015/16 season, cementing its reputation as England's most adventurous and ambitious opera company: a flagship Northern arts organisation.

A broad and eclectic range of work will be staged throughout the year, from the core operatic canon to works from the European and American traditions of operetta and musical theatre, drawing on the key ensemble strength of Opera North's Chorus, Orchestra and regular guest artists.

• The season includes new productions of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate and Giordano's Andrea Chénier.

< >Core operatic repertoire returning in Leeds and on tour includes The Barber of Seville, Jen?fa, Così fan tutte and L'elisir d'amore.A new production of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods marks Opera North's first major artistic collaboration with West Yorkshire Playhouse in June 2016.

< >The world premiere of a new chamber opera by Mark Simpson, Pleasure, set in a gay nightclub, will be directed by Tim Albery with cast including Lesley Garrett.Highly anticipated full cycles of The Ring will be conducted by Richard Farnes from April-July in Leeds, Nottingham, Salford, Gateshead and London, where performances of the first ever full Ring at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall have already sold out.

Opera North's 2015/16 season opens in style with a brand new production of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate, a co-production with Welsh National Opera. A landmark of 20th century American musical theatre, Kiss Me, Kate is directed by Jo Davies following critical and audience acclaim for her previous productions of Carousel, The Marriage of Figaro and Ruddigore.

Staging Porter's witty, jazz-inflected reworking of The Taming of the Shrew, with classic numbers including 'Too Darn Hot' and 'Always True to You in My Fashion,' is the realisation of a longstanding ambition of Opera North's, and follows on from the Company's previous productions of pieces by Kurt Weill, Stephen Sondheim, George Gershwin and Rodgers and Hammerstein. This new production of Kiss Me, Kate is designed by Colin Richmond with choreography by Will Tuckett, and features casting from both opera and musical theatre, including Quirijn de Lang as Fred Graham/Petruchio and Jeni Bern as Lilli Vanessi/Katherine.

Giordano's Andrea Chénier is given a new production by Annabel Arden, exploring the chaos of revolution and the role of the artist in a time of political turmoil. Conducted by Oliver von Dohnányi, the cast includes Rafael Rojas as Chénier, Robert Hayward as Gérard and Annemarie Kremer as Maddelena, returning to Opera North following memorable performances in the title role of Norma (2012) and as Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito (2013).

Much-loved works return to Opera North's repertoire, bringing together the ensemble talents of a new generation of UK and international singers. Our productions of Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Mozart's Così fan tutte and Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore have been enjoyed by audiences throughout the North and further afield; the latter two, in particular, demonstrating Opera North's international reach - Così has played at the Glimmerglass Opera Festival in New York and Elisir at Spain's Ópera de Oviedo.

Tom Cairns' intense and powerful production of Jen?fa also returns, now with Swedish soprano Ylva Kihlberg (Emilia Marty, The Makropulos Case, 2012) in the title role and Susan Bickley as the Kostelni?ka, conducted by the young Serbian conductor Aleksandar Markovi?. As well as making his Opera North main house debut, Markovi? will open the Orchestra of Opera North's 2015/16 symphonic concert programme in September, with a concert at Huddersfield Town Hall as part of the Kirklees Concert Season.

The Orchestra of Opera North plays a vital role in concert series in the Yorkshire region and stands alone in its ability to perform as both an opera and a concert orchestra. Its approach is fresh and enthusiastic and offers Opera North great versatility in our performance capabilities. Concert highlights in 2015/16 include Richard Farnes continuing his tenure with a performance of Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra, part of both the Kirklees Concert Season and the Leeds International Concert Season, and Jac van Steen conducting a programme of classical and neo-classical repertoire including Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations and Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in the Royal Concert Hall, Harrogate.

Another returning artist is Howard Shelley, back after his Chandos recording of Beethoven's complete works for piano and orchestra with the Orchestra of Opera North, to play and conduct Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto, Op 73, 'The Emperor,' while David Angus returns to conduct Dvo?ák's Symphony No. 7.

New collaborations and commissions

A new chamber opera, Pleasure, receives its world premiere at the Howard Assembly Room at Opera North in April 2016. It is the fourth new opera commissioned and produced as part of a three-year partnership between Aldeburgh Music, The Royal Opera and Opera North. Created by the young composer Mark Simpson and writer Melanie Challenger, the opera tells the story of Val (Lesley Garrett), who works as an attendant in the toilets in Pleasure, a hedonistic gay club in the north of England. When Nathan, a beautiful and unpredictable young man, arrives in Pleasure and leaves a gift for Val, it marks the beginning of an emotional and violent night. This new production is directed by Tim Albery, with set and costume designs by Leslie Travers.

Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, a major artistic collaboration between Opera North and the West Yorkshire Playhouse, will be staged in June 2016. It brings together two of Leeds' top arts organisations for their first ever large scale co-production, directed by West Yorkshire Playhouse Artistic Director James Brining.

Casting for Into the Woods will draw on the musical and dramatic strengths of the versatile members of the Chorus of Opera North, the Company's core full-time professional ensemble, many of whom regularly take principal roles in Opera North's productions.

Howard Assembly Room and Opera North Projects

The 2015/16 season will continue to see a stunning range of guest artists giving performances in the Howard Assembly Room, a venue in the heart of Leeds with an eclectic programme of music, film, performance and talks that is continuing to build its reputation for varied, exciting and unusual programming. Leading international artists visiting the Howard Assembly Room in 15/16 include the sufi singer Sain Zahoor, Tuvan throat singers Huun-Huur-Tu, the Brodsky Quartet, pianist Freddy Kempf, tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Simon Lepper, and in a new collaboration with Leeds Lieder, Kate Royal and Joseph Middleton.

Many of the events in the Howard Assembly Room are commissioned, curated and produced by Opera North Projects, which creates an alternative strand of work across different artforms, with a focus on collaboration. Current projects include Lulu: A Murder Ballad, created and co-produced with The Tiger Lillies in 2014, which now tours to London for the first time with a week of performances in November 2015 at the Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House.

The company continues to redefine the artform for new audiences, taking two Opera North Projects commissions to festivals stages at Latitude and Wilderness in Summer 2015. I am Yours, Yours am I', will travel to Latitude as the Thursday night takeover in the 'Faraway Forest,' a site-specific open air setting for the ethereal love duet 'Pur ti miro' from Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea (Thu 16 July 2015). The Devil's Jukebox, a tour of five centuries of Faustian music curated by cellist Matthew Sharp, will be the Saturday night headliner on the arts stage at Wilderness Festival (Sat 8 August 2015).

Opera North Projects commissions around The Ring include a new folk-based performance exploring Northern mythology and traditional songs, and the annual Liberty Lectures series in the Howard Assembly Room taking the theme of Apocalypse from Götterdämmerung.

Participation and community

In the past 12 months, Opera North has launched several new schemes building on its strong track record in attracting first-time attenders (44% of audience members over the last year were new attenders), including a large scale Community Engagement Programme funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation which aims to strengthen Opera North's relationship with local communities and to open up the art form to a wider and more diverse audience. The programme has been an unqualified success, with a total of 78 different community groups in Leeds becoming members of the scheme, and over 3500 attendances at performances since the project began, with an additional 1347 attendances at special taster performances and workshops.

An Under 30s membership programme was launched in 2014, with a focus on attracting younger audiences to mainstage opera productions. More than 2,000 Under 30's members have joined the scheme in Leeds in its first year.

A matinee of L'elisir d'amore in Leeds on Tuesday 23 February 2016 will be performed especially for a Schools audience, following the success of a Schools matinee of The Bartered Bride in the 14/15 season, which saw hundreds of young people attend their first opera. Other new initiatives for 2015/16 include Whistle Stop Opera: bite-sized performances created especially to take opera into a range of community settings, from care homes to museums, libraries and the cafe on the corner. With the original music condensed for a small group of singers and musicians, these introductory performances squeeze drama, excitement and glorious voices into just 20 minutes.

Opera North Education's community residency programmes go from strength to strength, as the orchestra-focused In Harmony Opera North expands to a second school in South Leeds. Successfully running at Windmill Primary School since 2013, the scheme will be extended from September 2015 to Low Road Primary, bringing the number of young people aged 3-19 engaged in In Harmony Opera North on a weekly basis to well over 600.

A developing presence for Opera North in the city of Hull includes a new five year partnership with the University of Hull. The Opera North Singing School programme at Bude Park Primary in Bransholme will be joined by new Hull-based branches of the Opera North Children's Chorus (ages 8-14) and Opera North Youth Company (ages 14-19), fostering the musical and artistic development of young people throughout the region with specialised performance skills and a focus on stagecraft alongside vocal technique.

Celebrating The Ring

An extraordinary journey comes full circle in the Summer of 2016, as Opera North celebrates the end of Music Director Richard Farnes' 12 year tenure with highly anticipated full performances of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Previously staged in annual instalments between 2011 and 2014 and performed to sell-out crowds, the dramatic power of the music takes centre stage in a Ring like no other, which has seen Richard Farnes become a leading interpreter of Wagner's epic scores.

Minimal costumes and lighting enhance the performances, staged and designed by Peter Mumford, with a triptych of screens providing subtle visuals and text. This format, which has proven to be compelling and visceral, places the extended 100-piece Orchestra of Opera North on stage with the singers addressing the audience directly, to thrilling effect.

Casting for The Ring includes top British and international Wagnerian performers, many of whom return after making their mark in previous instalments, including Giselle Allen, Mats Almgren, Susan Bickley, Michael Druiett, Daniel Frank, Robert Hayward, Kelly Cae Hogan, Yvonne Howard, Alwyn Mellor, Béla Perencz, Mati Turi and Michael Weinius.

An extensive celebratory programme is being designed around The Ring performances, with up to 1000 young people (age 8-11) in Leeds, Hull, Newcastle, Salford and Nottingham joining the Opera North Big Sing. Over six months, participants will learn a programme of repertoire linked to Northern myths and stories, supported by Vocal Delivery Artists, which will culminate in performances in Summer 2016.

The 100-strong Opera North Children's Chorus (Leeds) will also perform a series of three concerts linked to The Ring; and there will be a series of special 60 minute orchestral concerts of music from The Ring for secondary schools. A host of other learning and participation events are being planned alongside performances at all venues, allowing audiences to gain a deeper insight into Wagner's work, and many new audience members to experience one of opera's greatest masterpieces for the first time.

Richard Mantle, General Director, comments:

"The next year at Opera North promises to be one of our most excitingly diverse seasons yet, beginning with Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate, a work we have long wanted to stage, and concluding with our six complete cycles of Wagner's Ring, via the works of Janá?ek, Mozart, Giordano and Sondheim.

"I am particularly delighted too that two new productions in the spring demonstrate our ongoing commitment to forging creative partnerships and creating new work, breathing new life into contemporary opera performance. Pleasure is a new opera by a hugely talented young composer, Mark Simpson, jointly commissioned and produced through a partnership between Aldeburgh Music, The Royal Opera and Opera North. Then in June we join forces with West Yorkshire Playhouse for a major collaboration in which we will co-produce Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods in the Quarry Theatre, in a new production by the Playhouse's Artistic Director James Brining.

. It promises to be a festive moment for the whole Company, and we are planning an incredibly diverse range of special events surrounding these performances, for audiences and participants of all ages.The Ring"This season marks the conclusion of Richard Farnes' twelve-year term as Music Director of Opera North. Richard's contribution to the life of the Company is incalculable, and there can be no more fitting conclusion to his illustrious tenure than conducting

"

To post a comment, you must register and login.