Opera North 2018-19 Season

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Basic details have just been made public:

Sept-Dec:
Tosca
The Merry Widow
Silent Night

Jan - Mar
Magic Flute
Katya Kabanova
Gianni Schicchi/The Rite of Spring (sic - a double bill in collaboration with Phoenix Dance)

Apr-May
Aida (semi-staged in the Town Hall).

... and on tour.

Some of the relevant directors have been named (Edward Dick for Tosca, James Brining for Flute, Annabel Arden for Aida) but none of the conductors/cast. (Anyone know any news about who the new Music Director is, by the way?)

I'll probably give the first third a miss (unless my Premium Bonds put up), but 2019 is starting very well for me!

Booking Opens for Full Season tickets on 15th March, "Create Your Own Package" a week later, and single tickets from 9th April.

[Thropplenoggin]

Being a regular attendee of ON (three times this month), I was hoping for some more Wagner - Tristan, say, or Parsifal. Shame. Madame Butterfly has been the highlight of the Fatal Passions season - I found the revived Don Giovanni production banal, tho' HIPPites might approve the fortepiano accompaniment and mandolin minuet.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There's absolutely no justification for this semi-staged nonsense. Opera North did an excellent fully staged Aida in Leeds Grand Theatre, so what on earth are they playing at now?

[Thropplenoggin]

There's absolutely no justification for this semi-staged nonsense. Opera North did an excellent fully staged Aida in Leeds Grand Theatre, so what on earth are they playing at now?

I saw a very inventively semi-staged Turandot last year. I'd rather that than the static set of DG currently running, which has clearly been done with cost-cutting in mind.

[Braunschlag]

There's absolutely no justification for this semi-staged nonsense. Opera North did an excellent fully staged Aida in Leeds Grand Theatre, so what on earth are they playing at now?

I beg to differ. If that was the case many of us would have not had the luxury of a Ring cycle for starters.
It works and enables the company to mount ambitious performances (not productions I might add) and to savour the sonic advantages of the superior acoustics in the Town Hall. The Grand Theatre is a good venue but limited with a smaller pit and it’s a bit of a dry acoustic. I still go there as it’s a must to see the whole package but I’ve never felt shortchanged by the Town Hall stagings. Try one, you’d be surprised.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

In the case of Aida, it must be a cost-cutting exercise. The Grand Theatre was refurbished at great cost with opera productions in mind. And Aida was a great production there.

Some operas, like Dido and Aeneas, may work on a concert stage, but Aida is about spectacle. So in 2019, is to be the Arena di Verona, or Leeds Town Hall?

[Braunschlag]

Leeds Town Hall will suit me fine!
I understand that there is a history to these Town Hall performances, originating from when the Grand Theatre was closed (Salome springs to mind a few years back).
It may well be a costing exercise but I’d rather have the opportunity to hear it in this format than not.
It’s also a real boon to be able to see (and hear) the excellent orchestra, too often the unsung heroes. And, to finish, if it means I don’t have to sit through some insanity of a producers ‘vision’ then I’m all for that.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I saw a very inventively semi-staged Turandot last year.

- in fact, of course, the only "nonsense" about that semi-staged production is ON's calling it "semi-staged": the full stage was used, there were costumes, props, and carefully-designed lighting effects.

As everyone who saw the Ring - these are truly "staged" performances; so much so that the televised broadcasts couldn't cope with the whole set, and various (not very effective) split screen devices had to be resorted to.

And they have the advantage of having the singers in front of the orchestra, lessening the need for the singers to have to force their voices, giving better balance, and making the orchestra fully visible. (And the Town Hall seats are so much more comfortable than those in the Grand Theatre - how on earth those be-bustled Victorian women managed to get into those seats - let alone get back out again - boggles the mind!)

I wish all Opera productions were staged this way.

[Conchis]

I enjoyed the ON Ring. Musically, it was the best Ring I've ever heard in a theatre. And the semi-staging definitely worked. It was infinitely preferable to Keith Warner's incoherent staged mess at Covent Garden.

Bit disappointed in those announcements: I don't need to see Tosca again anytime soon and the Kata will presumably be a revival.

[kuligin]

Very disapointing,Tosca again, an operetta and I dont know what "Silent Night" is. I fear my visit to Un Ballo on Tuesday, despite its poor reviews, will be last visit until 2019. And as I dont do ballet or semi staged, 2019 does not look much better. IndeediIt looks like Kat'a may be my only trip to Leeds all season as the last two Mozarts in Leeds have been painfuly poor. In the North we really live at the very edge of the operatic world. It is very expensive to travel and stay over night in London even if you can manage to get a cheap ampitheatre ticket.

I suppose its all down to money, I remember the staged Aida years ago, very good much better than the weak ENO effort last year.

To think I saw Der Sturm in Saarbrucken in January, given to a full house, not that I am advocating that sort of repertoire in Leeds, but if you dont like verismo, or musicals you get a pretty poor deal from ON.

[Conchis]

Very disapointing,Tosca again, an operetta and I dont know what "Silent Night" is. I fear my visit to Un Ballo on Tuesday, despite its poor reviews, will be last visit until 2019. And as I dont do ballet or semi staged, 2019 does not look much better. IndeediIt looks like Kat'a may be my only trip to Leeds all season as the last two Mozarts in Leeds have been painfuly poor. In the North we really live at the very edge of the operatic world. It is very expensive to travel and stay over night in London even if you can manage to get a cheap ampitheatre ticket.

I suppose its all down to money, I remember the staged Aida years ago, very good much better than the weak ENO effort last year.

To think I saw Der Sturm in Saarbrucken in January, given to a full house, not that I am advocating that sort of repertoire in Leeds, but if you dont like verismo, or musicals you get a pretty poor deal from ON.

Wasn't always the case. I remember being introduced to Wozyeck in Deborah Warner's mid-90s production (sadly sung in English, but one can't have everything). I enjoyed the Giovanni but not enough to see it again. Their recent (2016) Billy Budd with Roderick Williams was excellent, I thought.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

- in fact, of course, the only "nonsense" about that semi-staged production is ON's calling it "semi-staged": the full stage was used, there were costumes, props, and carefully-designed lighting effects.

In the Lowrie, the singers were restricted to the front RH side of the stage, so it was only about 15% staged.

And they have the advantage of having the singers in front of the orchestra, lessening the need for the singers to have to force their voices, giving better balance, and making the orchestra fully visible.

... which is why the orchestra is placed in a pit - in the case of HIPP Bayreuth, one where the orchestra can't be seen at all.

Concert performances are fine, but let's not pretend they're anything more than that.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Concert performances are fine, but let's not pretend they're anything more than that.

Indeed - but let's not pretend that the ON Town Hall stagings are anything like "concert performances".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Indeed - but let's not pretend that the ON Town Hall stagings are anything like "concert performances".

I'm thinking that the Leeds TH setup must be better than the Salford alternative.

[kuligin]

Wasn't always the case. I remember being introduced to Wozyeck in Deborah Warner's mid-90s production (sadly sung in English, but one can't have everything). I enjoyed the Giovanni but not enough to see it again. Their recent (2016) Billy Budd with Roderick Williams was excellent, I thought.

My recollection is that there was always a fair amount of verismo and Traviatas, as all houses have to perform, but "grand opera" Aida Tannhauser Don Carlos were staged as were Pelleas King Priam Ariane et Barbe Bleue and the musicals came rather irregularly. Now we get one work semi staged each year at least in Leeds, the rest of us really just get a concert performance and musicals are present every year.

Silent Night turns out to be an opera by Kevin Puts who I have never heard of, and after a quick listen to part of his 4th Symphonyon qobuz to me his music sounded like film music. Thats another recent trait, all "new " music is of this type, if ON cannot risk anything as modern as say Benjamin or Ades, then I would prefer they did not waste their limited resources on that sort of thing.

Billy Budd was good as was Death in Venice and the Janacek series has been worth seeing but the company are a shadow of what existed 20 years ago in terms of staged repertoire. I for one am not interested in the standard repertoire performed semi staged or in concert.