One of Mozart’s most famous and best-loved operas, The Marriage of Figaro, will launch the new Opera North season in January.
Figaro, written in 1786, is a tender and heart-warming comic opera and is perfect for those who want to ease themselves into the operatic world.
The new Opera North production is being directed by Jo Davies, who previously produced Ruddigore and Carousel for the company. Jo has worked with many of the UK’s leading theatre companies, including the National Theatre, Bristol Old Vic and English National Opera, where she directed Aida in 2010.
Figaro, which opens on Saturday, January 24, at Leeds Grand, is a tale of misadventure and misunderstanding that takes place on the wedding day of Figaro and Susanna and is subtitled ‘The Follies of a Day’. When the opera premiered it was much admired by contemporary composers such as Haydn and Brahms and is still much-performed around the world.
The Opera North production features an international cast, including British baritone Richard Burkhard; Norwegian soprano Silvia Moi and Australian mezzo soprano Helen Sherman. Young British conductor Alexander Shelley, winner of the 2005 Leeds Conductors Competition, returns to the company for this production.
Figaro can be seen until Saturday, February 28, at the Leeds Grand, along with productions of La Vida Breve, Gianni Schicchi and La Traviata.
The double billing of La vida breve and Gianni Schicchi opens on Wednesday, February 18, in Leeds. The former, first performed 100 years ago, is Manual de Falla’s short tragic opera that tells the story of a woman who loves a worthless man.
It was originally staged by Opera North as part of a season of one-act operas back in 2004. This revival, directed by Christopher Alden, has an all-new cast headed by French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels in the lead role of Salud. La vida breve is influenced by Andalusian folk songs and Spanish dance rhythms.
Gianni Schicchi, Puccini’s only outright comedy and written in 1918, is based on an episode in Dante’s Inferno and turns the spotlight on the greed and absurdity of a dying man’s scheming relatives. It will star one of contemporary opera’s great performers, Christopher Purves, in the leading role.
Last, but not least, Opera North’s acclaimed new production of La Traviata, which was a hit this autumn, returns on Saturday, January 31. The extended run will see Polish soprano Anne Jeruc-Kopec taking the role of the doomed Violetta, a courtesan whose world of reckless pleasure is turned upside down when she falls in love with a young nobleman.
Backdrops for the production feature striking and emotive images of the tuberculosis bacteria that caused so many early deaths at the time when Verdi was writing his opera (one in four fatalities could be attributed to the disease TB).
La Traviata, first performed in 1853, also features South Korean tenor Ji-Min Park in the role of Alfredo and Stephen Gadd as Alfredo’s father Germont.
For ticket details visit www.operanorth.co.uk
