Opera North

This is about the British organisation; for the unrelated American one, see Opera North (U.S.A.).
exterior of a neo-classical theatre
The Grand Theatre, Leeds, home of Opera North

Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and the Theatre Royal, Newcastle. The Company's orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North, regularly performs and records in its own right. Operas are performed either in English translation or in the original language of the libretto, in the latter case usually with surtitles.

The major funders of Opera North include Arts Council England and, in Yorkshire, Leeds City Council, West Yorkshire Grants, North Yorkshire County Council, and East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

History

Opera North was established in 1977 as English National Opera North, as an offshoot of English National Opera, with the specific intention of delivering high-quality opera to the northern areas of England which, up to that point, had had no permanently established opera company. The company gave its first performance, of Saint-Saëns's Samson and Delilah, on 15 November 1978. The founding Music Director of the company was David Lloyd-Jones, who held the post until 1990. In 1981, the company's name was changed to Opera North, and the official ties with English National Opera ceased to exist.

Paul Daniel became the company's second music director, serving in the post from 1990 to 1997. With general administrators Nicholas Payne and, later, Ian Ritchie and Richard Mantle, the company continued to bring operatic novelties, as well as a wide selection of familiar works, to its audience in the North of England and further afield. Following Daniel's departure, Elgar Howarth held the temporary post of Music Advisor, until Steven Sloane became Music Director in 1999.

Richard Farnes became music director in 2004. Achievements during his tenure included the company's first staging of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, over a span of 4 years.[1][2][3][4][5] Farnes is scheduled to stand down as music director after the 2015-2016 season.[6]

In October 2015, Aleksandar Marković made his first appearance as guest conductor with the company.[7] In February 2016, the company announced the appointment of Marković as its next music director, effective with the 2016-2017 season.[8]

Characteristics of the company

Repertory

As well as presenting the bread-and-butter operas of the standard repertory, the company has performed a number of operas that are rarely seen in Britain. Examples include:

In 2011, the company performed The Portrait by Mieczysław Weinberg and initiated an annual series of semi-staged concert performances of the four operas in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen by performing Das Rheingold in Leeds Town Hall. Beached, a community opera by composer Harvey Brough with a libretto by Lee Hall co-commissioned by Opera North and the sea-side resort of Bridlington premiered on 15 July 2011.

At the request of the Bridlington primary school whose 300 children performed in the opera, the company asked for the removal of an explicit reference to a gay character's sexuality from one of the scenes. Hall initially refused, and the opera was withdrawn.[9] However, following negotiations the matter was resolved when the character's contentious line "Of course I'm queer" was changed to "Of course I'm gay".[10]

World premieres

Opera North has given world premières of the following operas: Rebecca by Wilfred Josephs (1983), Caritas by Robert Saxton (1991), Baa, Baa, Black Sheep by Michael Berkeley (1993), Playing Away by Benedict Mason (1994), The Nightingale's to Blame by Simon Holt (1998), Jonathan Dove's The Adventures of Pinocchio (2007) and Swanhunter (2009), and Skin Deep by David Sawer and Armando Iannucci (2009). In July 2009, Opera North premièred Prima Donna, a new opera by Rufus Wainwright, at the Manchester International Festival.[11]

Musical theatre

Opera North has also given performances of musical theatre works. The first was Jerome Kern's Show Boat (in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company) in 1989, and productions of Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing and Sondheim's Sweeney Todd followed in 1998. Latterly, the works of Kurt Weill have become something of a speciality, with productions of Love Life (1996), One Touch of Venus and The Seven Deadly Sins in 2004 and Arms and the Cow in 2006. In 2009, Let 'Em Eat Cake, the sequel to Of Thee I Sing, was produced, and in 2012 Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel was performed in Leeds, Salford and London..

Electronic music

Opera North has worked extensively with electronic composer Mira Calix, commissioning Dead Wedding (for the Manchester International Festival 2007) Onibus (2008) and the installation Chorus (2009) for the opening of the Howard Assembly Rooms with visual artist UVA.

Awards

Music directors

References

Notes
  1. ↑ Tim Ashley (2011-06-21). "Das Rheingold – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  2. ↑ Alfred Hickling (2012-06-12). "Opera North tackles Wagner's Ring Cycle – minus the financial dramas". The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  3. ↑ Tim Ashley (2012-06-17). "Die Walküre – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  4. ↑ Tim Ashley (2013-06-18). "Siegfried – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  5. ↑ Alfred Hickling (2014-06-15). "Götterdämmerung review – belt-and-braces Wagner". The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  6. ↑ Imogen Tilden (2014-04-30). "Opera North announce first Poppea and departure of music director Farnes". The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  7. ↑ Martin Dreyer (2015-10-23). "Review: Opera North in Jenůfa; Grand Theatre, Leeds". The Yorkshire Press. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  8. ↑ "Opera North's new Music Director: Aleksandar Marković" (Press release). Opera North. 2016-02-24. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  9. ↑ Mark Brown (2011-07-03). "Opera pulled after school protests over gay character". The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  10. ↑ "Homophobia row opera to go ahead". BBC News. 2011-07-07. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
  11. ↑ Higgins, Charlotte (2008-10-09). "From pop to opera: petrified Rufus Wainwright embraces 'the dark religion'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-02-22.
  12. ↑ TMA press release
  13. ↑ RPS Music Awards site
  14. ↑ Metro report
  15. ↑ Arts Council press release

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, March 27, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.