THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, LA BOHEME, and More Set For Opera North's 2025/26 Season

Opera North has announced its repertoire for the year ahead as it celebrates the power of opera to tell captivating stories through some of the most exciting music ever written. The season will kick off in September with The Secret of the Black Spider. Learn more about the full season here!

Laura Canning, General Director, Opera North, says, “This year, we’re championing the next generation of talent as we welcome our Youth Company to the main stage to open the season in Leeds. We’ll be celebrating strong women in our creative teams and on the stage - and continuing our commitment to creative collaborations to produce exciting new work for our audiences to enjoy.   

“As usual, we’ll be touring our work, ensuring that communities across the north of England can access opera of the highest quality, as well as heading to Market Harborough in Leicestershire as we enter into our new five-year partnership with Nevill Holt Festival. We continue to look for ways to make the art form accessible to everyone with matinees, English subtitles at all opera performances and sign-interpretation and audio-description at every venue. Our Try it ON and Under 30s schemes offering cheaper tickets for first-timers and young people are also available everywhere we tour, with a range of pricing options for more regular opera-goers.

“We’re proud to have our own full-time Chorus and Orchestra. Both perform not only in the theatre, where many of our Chorus members take on named roles, but also in other venues across the country. Our programme of films with live music has introduced a whole new audience in Leeds to the joy of hearing an orchestra play, and we’re delighted to be offering both Amadeus and Psycho with live orchestra at Leeds Grand Theatre in October.

“Above all, we want everyone to experience opera and music in a way which suits them, whether through a contemporary piece, a popular classic or a family show. This season is a celebration of everything that we believe makes opera and live performance vital.”

Ticket packages for Opera North 2025-2026 season are on sale from 26 March, with public on sale from 20 June. 

The Secret of the Black Spider – Judith Weir NEW

Press night: Friday 26 September, 7pm, Leeds Grand Theatre

Creative team: Conductor Nicholas Shaw; Director Rosie Kat; Set and Costume Designer Zahra Mansouri; Lighting Designer Jake Wiltshire

September sees the UK premiere of the ‘Hamburg’ version of Dame Judith Weir’s opera The Secret of the Black Spider performed by the Opera North Youth Company. This is the first time an opera by a female composer has been performed on the main stage at Opera North and the first time Opera North’s talented young people have opened the season both on the stage and in the orchestra pit. 

Sung in English, performances will take place over two consecutive days at Leeds Grand Theatre.

Susanna – Handel NEW production in partnership with Phoenix Dance Theatre

Press Night: Saturday 4 October, 7pm, Leeds Grand Theatre 

Creative team: Conductor Johanna Soller; Director Olivia Fuchs; Choreographer Marcus Jarrell Willis; Set and Costume Designer Zahra Mansouri; Lighting Designer Jake Wiltshire

Opera North partners with its Leeds neighbours Phoenix Dance Theatre for the fourth time to bring one of the most operatic of Handel’s English oratorios to the stage. Dance and opera are combined in a powerful contemporary reimagining of the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders. All performances will include creative integrated BSL signing. 

Anna Dennis (Elena/ Witch, Masque of Might, 2023; Queen of the Night, The Magic Flute, 2024/25) takes on the role of Susanna with Matthew Brook (Sceptic/ Samuel, Masque of Might, 2023) as Chelsias and Claire Lees (Lisette, La Rondine, 2023; Pamina, The Magic Flute, 2024) as Daniel.

La bohème – Puccini REVIVAL

Press Night: Saturday 18 October 2025, 7pm, Leeds Grand Theatre

Creative team: Conductor Garry Walker/ Catriona Beveridge; Director Phyllida Lloyd; Revival Director James Hurley; Set and Costume Designer Anthony Ward; Lighting Designer Rick Fisher; Choreographer Maxine Braham

Phyllida Lloyd’s acclaimed production perfectly captures student life in Paris in the early 1960s - but equally it does not shy away from depicting the devastation death brings when it touches the lives of a group of young friends. 

Revived by James Hurley (La rondine, 2023) and conducted by Opera North Music Director Garry Walker, the two international casts include many young singers making their Opera North debuts. Sharing the role of Mimì are Chilean soprano Isabela Díaz and American Olivia Boen. Italian tenor Anthony Ciaramitaro and British-American Joshua Blue take on the role of Rodolfo, while the Armenian baritone Grisha Martirosyan and Korean Josef Jeongmeen Ahn sing Marcello. After appearing in the role of Guglielmo in Così fan tutte for Opera North at the Nevill Holt Festival, Seán Boylan will join the company in Leeds as Schaunard. Elin Pritchard (Vixen, The Cunning Little Vixen, 2023) and Katie Bird (Eliza Doolittle, My Fair Lady, 2024) sing Musetta.

Pass the Spoon – David Fennessy NEW

Press Night: Friday 12 December 2025, 7pm, Howard Assembly Room, Leeds (LIMITED PRESS TICKETS)

Creative team: Conductor Garry Walker; Director Nicholas Bone; Design Concept David Shrigley/ Nicholas Bone; Costume Designer David Shrigley

Undoubtedly the craziest ‘sort-of-opera’ offered this side of Christmas. Set on a daytime cookery programme, hosts June Spoon and Phillip Fork – assisted by a manic-depressive egg and a highly-strung banana – must prepare a meal for Mr Granules, a monstrously demanding diner whose appetite knows no bounds.

Served up by composer David Fennessy, artist David Shrigley and director Nicholas Bone, Pass the Spoon is a darkly comic feast of words (spoken and sung), music and puppetry, made with decidedly adult ingredients. This will be the first major revival since its premiere at Glasgow’s Tramway in 2011 in a production specially conceived for the Howard Assembly Room.

Original production by Magnetic North in collaboration with Red Note Ensemble and Tramway

The Marriage of Figaro - Mozart NEW

Press Night: Friday 30 January 2026, 7pm, Leeds Grand Theatre

Creative team: Conductor Valentina Peleggi/ Oliver Rundell; Director Louisa Muller; Set and Costume Designer Madeleine Boyd; Lighting Designer Malcolm Rippeth; Choreographer Rebecca Howell

A brand-new production of The Marriage of Figaro, which is surely the quintessential country house comedy, as well as being one of Mozart’s most popular operas. The composer’s sublime score fizzes with high spirits while also plumbing the depths of emotion to express both the joy and pain of love and desire.

This new production marks the Opera North debut of Louisa Muller who will be directing a cast of singers who are also new to the company, including Hera Hyesang Park as Susanna, Liam James Karai as Figaro, Gabriella Reyes as Countess Almaviva, Hongni Wu as Cherubino and Jamie Woollard as Antonio. They will be joined by two returnees: James Newby (Demetrius, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2024) as Count Almaviva and Katherine Broderick (Brünnhilde, Siegfried, 2016) as Marcellina. This will be the first time Opera North has performed the opera in the original Italian.

Alongside the main production, Whistle Stop Opera: Marriage of Figaro, a short, fun, interactive version, will tour to venues across the North in the autumn.

Peter Grimes – Britten REVIVAL

Press Night: Friday 13 February, 7pm, Leeds Grand Theatre

Creative team: Conductor Garry Walker; Director Phyllida Lloyd; Revival Director Karolina Sofulak; Set and Costume Designer Anthony Ward; Lighting Designer Paule Constable; Movement Director Tim Claydon

Although rooted in a small fishing community on the east coast of England, the conflict at the heart of Britten’s sea-swept opera is universal. The fisherman Peter Grimes is an outsider, torn between the dream of a conventional life with Ellen Orford, a local schoolteacher, and the truth of his own nature – at times visionary, at others violent. For the rest of the community, he is a channel for their worst fears and their deepest desires.

Winner of the South Bank Show Opera Award, Phyllida Lloyd’s soul-searing production was hailed as an Opera North classic when it was first performed. John Findon sings the title role, while Philippa Boyle and Blaise Malaba make their company debuts as Ellen Orford and Hobson.

The Big Opera Mystery – for children aged 5-12 and their families

First performance: Saturday 25 October 2025, 2pm, Leeds Grand Theatre

Building on the success of The Big Opera Adventure which delighted younger audiences last year, The Big Opera Mystery opens in Leeds in October, before touring to Newcastle, Salford and Nottingham. Mini sleuths are invited to put their crime-solving skills to the test as they try to catch an expert thief, all to the accompaniment of some amazing operatic arias. 

Written and directed by Jonathan Ainscough with design by Bek Palmer, this new musical extravaganza features live music from the Orchestra of Opera North and provides the perfect introduction to opera for everyone.

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Opera North’s new five-year partnership with the Nevill Holt Festival commences this summer, with Mozart’s comic masterpiece Così fan tutte opening on Friday 6 June. Each year, the Festival welcomes internationally renowned artists, musicians and writers to the beautiful grounds of the Nevill Holt estate in Leicestershire. This new partnership has been set up with the shared ambition to maximise opportunities for performers and creatives, particularly those at the start of their careers in opera. A new Opera North production for the 2026 Festival will be announced later this year.

Opera North will also be running a project with Streetwise Opera in Nottingham as part of the initiative Reimagining the Classics. Working with their weekly opera group which comprises homeless people and those recently out of homelessness, Streetwise Opera will be creating a short performance taking The Marriage of Figaro as their inspiration. This will be performed on stage at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham with the Orchestra of Opera North and members of the Chorus in early March 2026, coinciding with Opera North’s residency in the city.

While offering structured vocal and instrumental learning pathways though our Talent Development Programme and delivering the widely admired In Harmony programme to over 3,200 young people each week, Opera North will also be running a Key Stage 2 singing project from January to June 2026 based on Michael Morpurgo’s book Dear Olly and composed by Nkeiru Okoye. The participative project will culminate in a series of semi-staged productions in which students will perform alongside professional singers, as well as musicians from the Orchestra of Opera North.

From Couch to Chorus makes a welcome return for adult singers in Autumn 2025, offering the chance to sing with the Chorus of Opera North as part of a final live/online hybrid performance in the Howard Assembly Room. New this year is Sing ON: Come and Sing which will culminate with the participants singing with the Orchestra of Opera North in Leeds Grand Theatre in February 2026. 

In addition to its work on the main stage, the Orchestra of Opera North makes a vital contribution to the wider musical life of the region, including the Kirklees Concert Season in Huddersfield and Dewsbury, outdoor concerts in Leeds’ Millennium Square, and regular appearances at festivals such as Buxton, Ryedale and Ripon.

Highlights of the 2025/26 orchestral season include Opera North Music Director Garry Walker conducting Brahms’ Fourth Symphony and Rachmaninov’s Second, Elena Urioste playing Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, Alexander Gavrylyuk playing Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Dana Zemtsov performing Walton’s Viola Concerto. Joining the musicians will be internationally-renowned guest conductors Chloe Rooke, Sora Elisabeth Lee and Karel Deseure. 

Prior to that, there are two opportunities for people to hear the orchestra live in Leeds when the popular programme of films with live scores continues on Thursday 30 October with Amadeus, Miloš Forman’s 1984 film exploring the possible rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. The following day, a scare is in the air with Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1960s film Psycho – the perfect way to mark Halloween.

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