Ahead of the Opera Season: Big man - and an even bigger voice
Anna Picard looks ahead to the new opera season, which is bigger and better than ever
Sunday, 5 August 2007
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The 2007/2008 opera season starts next month, and as Opera North turns Japanese, English National Opera clicks its castanets, and Scottish Opera gets the giggles, the Royal Opera House will be offering three complete cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen (from 2 October). Tickets are as scarce as singing dragons, so those wanting to see Bryn Terfel, Lisa Gasteen and Placido Domingo in Keith Warner's production should phone for returns (020 7304 4000) or join a queue of Wagnerian proportions for the 23 seats that will be released on the day of performance.
From 29 September, Alice Coote will be smouldering in Sally Potter's Carmen (0870 145 1700), first of a string of high-profile new productions from ENO. On 22 September, Welsh National Opera gives the world premiere of Scottish composer James MacMillan's The Sacrifice at the Wales Millennium Centre in a production by Katie Mitchell (08700 40 2000). Up at Glasgow's Theatre Royal (0870 060 6647), Scottish Opera is playing for laughs with Sir Thomas Allen's Il barbiere di Siviglia (from 3 October) and Tobias Hoheisel's Seraglio (from 19 October), while Leeds-based Opera North (0870 121 4901) has two new productions from Tim Albery: Madama Butterfly (from 15 September) and Keiser's German Baroque jewel, The Fortunes of King Croesus (from 17 October).
Glyndebourne (01273 813813) produces some of its most interesting work in the autumn. This year's tour features a revival of Richard Jones's Macbeth and a new production of L'Elisir d'amore from Annabel Arden (from 9 October). In Birmingham, Graham Vick's revolutionary company of singing actors will present two performances of La traviata at the National Indoor Arena from 25 October (www.birminghamopera.org.uk). Tête à Tête takes Blind Date on the road in November (www. tete-a-tete.org.uk) and will have workshops of its latest compendium of contemporary mini–operas from tomorrow as part of an informal festival of new work at the Riverside.
Please check listings; all dates are subject to change; next week, visual arts
