English Touring Opera presents new productions of Manon Lescaut and The Rake’s Progress for Spring 2024 tour (24 February – 28 Might 2024)
- New English translation of Manon Lescaut by director Jude Christian
- New productions and opera for kids, The Nice Stink, to achieve 1000’s of individuals in additional than 20 cities and cities throughout the nation
English Touring Opera (ETO) presents new productions of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut and Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress for its Spring 2024 tour. The season explores the temptations and pitfalls of the massive metropolis, each within the larger-scale productions and their new opera for kids, The Nice Stink. Persevering with ETO’s mission to make distinctive creative experiences out there to all, the tour brings excellent stay productions and impactful training and neighborhood initiatives to greater than twenty cities and cities throughout the nation.
The tour opens with a radical, dreamlike interpretation of Manon Lescaut, a devastating depiction of a lady wrestling together with her want for love on her personal phrases, and the double requirements imposed on her by society. Filled with memorable music and heartbreaking drama, this new manufacturing presents a singular fashionable tackle one in all Puccini’s most liked operas. The manufacturing is directed by Jude Christian – not too long ago acclaimed for her ‘brilliantly provocative’ (The Guardian) Titus Andronicus on the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse – who additionally brings her sharp, punchy new English translation to the piece. Gerry Cornelius, ETO’s Music Director, conducts. Soprano Jenny Stafford, whose earlier roles for English Touring Opera embody Despina in Così fan tutte, Melissa in Amadigi, Mimì in La bohème and soloist of their staging of St John Ardour, sings the title position for the primary time, with Gareth Morris as Des Grieux, Aidan Edwards as Lescaut and Edward Hawkins as Geronte.
The tour additionally features a new manufacturing of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, charting younger Tom Rakewell’s journey from surprising inheritance to break – an initially cynical story which develops into one in all redemption and humanity. Polly Graham, Creative Director of Longborough Pageant Opera, directs this multilayered manufacturing, and musical polymath Jack Sheen, who not too long ago performed Final Days on the Royal Opera Home, conducts. Tenor Frederick Jones sings the position of Tom Rakewell, a task he has carried out earlier than to important acclaim – Bachtrack said that he ‘appeared born to sing Rakewell, up to now did his high-quality singing and performing make it troublesome to recall a extra persuasive interpretation’. Nazan Fikret, recent from performing Clorinda in ETO’s 2023 manufacturing of Cinderella, stars as Anne Trulove, with Jerome Knox as Nick Shadow and Lauren Younger as Baba.
ETO’s Studying and Participation programme is central to the corporate’s mission and reaches over 10,000 individuals annually by productions in theatres, colleges, museums and libraries. This continues within the Spring 2024 with The Nice Stink, the second in ETO’s trilogy of operas for kids exploring local weather change and the setting. Set in opposition to the backdrop of the Nice Stink of 1858 – when the Thames was so polluted that London was lined in a foul fog – this fun-filled household opera is dropped at life with singers, musicians and puppets in addition to interactive moments the place youngsters will get to fulfill Queen Victoria, Prime Minister Disraeli and even the Thames herself. Written by Hannah Khalil and composed by Omar Shahryar, the opera will tour to theatres, libraries and museums throughout the nation.
Robin Norton-Hale, ETO’s Common Director, stated: ’With their themes of the significance of affection and human connection over greed and isolation, Manon Lescaut and The Rake’s Progress – and The Nice Stink too – have a fantastic deal to say about how we stay in an more and more divided world. The three operas showcase quite a lot of musical kinds, and I’m delighted that now we have assembled such thrilling inventive groups to reply to these sensible composers with completely different – and thrilling – approaches to design and staging. At ETO we attempt to convey the most effective in opera to audiences up and down the nation, and this season ought to have one thing for everybody; romance, modernism, puppetry, poetry – and naturally glorious music-making’.
Audiences can even be capable of expertise insights into the world of opera with ETO Unboxed, a programme of stay and digital occasions exploring the multi-disciplinary and multi-genre nature of opera masking music, theatre, design, language, motion and extra. ETO Unboxed occasions will give attention to the themes of the temptations of the massive metropolis (extra particulars to be introduced quickly).
Later within the yr, ETO and Britten Pears Arts co-produce Judith Weir’s Blond Eckbert, a darkish fairy story of isolation, guilt and despair in a brand new manufacturing directed by Robin Norton-Hale and performed by Gerry Cornelius. The manufacturing will open the Aldeburgh Pageant on 7 June (forged to be introduced quickly).
The spring tour opens at London’s Hackney Empire with Manon Lescaut on 24 February and The Rake’s Progress on 2 March earlier than each exhibits are toured throughout England till the tip of Might.
Extra data and tickets may be discovered on the English Touring Opera web site CLICK HERE.
Manon Lescaut
Manon – Jenny Stafford
Des Grieux – Gareth Morris
Lescaut – Aidan Edwards
Geronte – Edward Hawkins
Edmondo – Brenton Spiteri
Singer – Cicely Hé
Dance Grasp – David Horton
Naval Captain – Amy J Payne
Innkeeper – Edward Jowle
Sergeant – Phil Wilcox
Lamplighter – Julia Mariko
Director and Librettist – Jude Christian
Conductor – Gerry Cornelius
Designer – Charlotte Henery
Lighting designer – Ben Ormerod
24 February – Hackney Empire, London
9 March – Norwich Theatre Royal, Norwich
11 March – Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield
15 March – Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury
23 March – Snape Maltings Live performance Corridor, Snape
25 March – Gala Theatre, Durham
4 & 6 April – Buxton Opera Home, Buxton
9 April – Playhouse, Oxford
16 April – Curve Theatre, Leicester
19 April – York Theatre Royal, York
27 April – Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham
1 & 3 Might – Cambridge Arts Theatre, Cambridge
10 Might – Lighthouse, Poole
18 Might – Corridor for Cornwall, Truro
23 & 25 Might – Exeter Northcott Theatre, Exeter
27 Might – Tub Theatre Royal, Tub
The Rake’s Progress
Anne Trulove – Nazan Fikret
Tom Rakewell – Frederick Jones
Nick Shadow – Jerome Knox
Father Trulove – Trevor Eliot Bowes
Baba – Lauren Younger
Mom Goose – Amy J Payne
Sellem – Robin Bailey
Keeper of the Madhouse – Masimba Ushe
Director – Polly Graham
Conductor – Jack Sheen
Designer – April Dalton
Lighting designer – Ben Ormerod
2 March – Hackney Empire, London
8 March – Norwich Theatre Royal, Norwich
12 March – Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield
16 March – Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury
22 March – Snape Maltings Live performance Corridor, Snape
26 March – Gala Theatre, Durham
5 April – Buxton Opera Home, Buxton
10 April – Playhouse, Oxford
15 April – Curve Theatre, Leicester
20 April – York Theatre Royal, York
26 April – Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham
2 & 4 Might – Cambridge Arts Theatre, Cambridge
11 Might – Lighthouse, Poole
17 Might – Corridor for Cornwall, Truro
24 Might – Exeter Northcott Theatre, Exeter
28 Might – Tub Theatre Royal, Tub
The Nice Stink
Feminine Clerk / Theresa – Julia Mariko / Rachel Speirs
Queen Victoria / Maria – Judy Louie Brown / Amy J Payne
Joseph / Thames – Sandeep Gurrapadi / Brenton Spiteri
Disraeli – Edward Jowle / Masimba Ushe
Composer – Omar Shahryar
Author – Hannah Khalil
Director – Valentina Ceschi
Music director – Jack Ridley
Designer – Samuel Wilde
10 March – Norwich Theatre Royal, Norwich
16 March – Marlowe Studio, Canterbury
22 & 23 March – Warden’s Belief, Sizewell
8 April – arstdepot, London
18 April – Goole Library, Goole
18 April – Beverley Library, Beverley
20 April – York Theatre Royal Studio, York
20 April – Acomb Library, Acomb
11 Might – Sherling Studio, Lighthouse Centre for the Arts, Poole
16 Might – Plymstock Library, Plymstock
25 Might – Exeter Library, Exeter
27 & 28 Might – The Egg Theatre, Tub
