Opera North’s new season celebrating expertise, creativity and storytelling
New productions of Handel’s Susanna in collaboration with Phoenix Dance Theatre and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro directed by Louisa Muller
Return of two much-loved favourites performed by Opera North Music Director Garry Walker: Puccini’s La bohème and Britten’s Peter Grimes
Modern ‘form of opera’ Go the Spoon within the Howard Meeting Room
Judith Weir’s The Secret of the Black Spider carried out by the Opera North Youth Firm
New interactive Huge Opera Thriller to introduce opera to younger youngsters and their households
New partnership with Nevill Holt Competition in Leicestershire
For all of the dates of the 2025-2026 season and find out how to e book your tickets CLICK HERE
Opera North has introduced its repertoire for the 12 months forward because it celebrates the ability of opera to inform fascinating tales by means of among the most enjoyable music ever written.
Laura Canning, Common Director, Opera North, says: ‘This 12 months, we’re championing the subsequent era of expertise as we welcome our Youth Firm to the primary stage to open the season in Leeds. We’ll be celebrating robust girls in our artistic groups and on the stage – and persevering with our dedication to artistic collaborations to provide thrilling new work for our audiences to take pleasure in.
‘As common, we’ll be touring our work, guaranteeing that communities throughout the north of England can entry opera of the very best high quality, in addition to heading to Market Harborough in Leicestershire as we enter into our new five-year partnership with Nevill Holt Competition. We proceed to search for methods to make the artwork type accessible to everybody with matinees, English subtitles in any respect opera performances and sign-interpretation and audio-description at each venue. Our Attempt it ON and Underneath 30s schemes providing cheaper tickets for first-timers and younger individuals are additionally out there all over the place we tour, with a spread of pricing choices for extra common opera-goers.
‘We’re proud to have our personal full-time Refrain and Orchestra. Each carry out not solely within the theatre, the place a lot of our Refrain members tackle named roles, but in addition in different venues throughout the nation. Our programme of movies with reside music has launched an entire new viewers in Leeds to the enjoyment of listening to an orchestra play, and we’re delighted to offer each Amadeus and Psycho with reside orchestra at Leeds Grand Theatre in October.
‘Above all, we would like everybody to expertise opera and music in a means which fits them, whether or not by means of a up to date piece, a well-liked basic or a household present. This season is a celebration of the whole lot that we consider makes opera and reside efficiency very important.’
Ticket packages for Opera North 2025-2026 season are on sale from 26 March, with public on sale from 20 June.
CELEBRATING YOUNG TALENT: The Secret of the Black Spider – Judith Weir NEW
Artistic group: Conductor Nicholas Shaw; Director Rosie Kat; Set and Costume Designer Zahra Mansouri; Lighting Designer Jake Wiltshire
September sees the UK premiere of the ‘Hamburg’ model of Dame Judith Weir’s opera The Secret of the Black Spider carried out by the Opera North Youth Firm. That is the primary time an opera by a feminine composer has been carried out on the primary stage at Opera North and the primary time Opera North’s proficient younger folks have opened the season each on the stage and within the orchestra pit.
Sung in English, performances will happen over two consecutive days at Leeds Grand Theatre.
CELEBRATING COLLABORATION: Susanna – Handel
NEW manufacturing in partnership with Phoenix Dance Theatre
Artistic group: Conductor Johanna Soller; Director Olivia Fuchs; Choreographer Marcus Jarrell Willis; Set and Costume Designer Zahra Mansouri; Lighting Designer Jake Wiltshire
Opera North companions with its Leeds neighbours Phoenix Dance Theatre for the fourth time to convey one of the crucial operatic of Handel’s English oratorios to the stage. Dance and opera are mixed in a robust modern reimagining of the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders. All performances will embody artistic built-in BSL signing.
Anna Dennis (Elena / Witch, Masque of Would possibly, 2023; Queen of the Night time, The Magic Flute, 2024/25) takes on the function of Susanna with Matthew Brook (Sceptic / Samuel, Masque of Would possibly, 2023) as Chelsias and Claire Lees (Lisette, La Rondine, 2023; Pamina, The Magic Flute, 2024) as Daniel.
CELEBRATING CLASSIC OPERA: La bohème – Puccini REVIVAL
Artistic group: Conductor Garry Walker/ Catriona Beveridge; Director Phyllida Lloyd; Revival Director James Hurley; Set and Costume Designer Anthony Ward; Lighting Designer Rick Fisher; Choreographer Maxine Braham
Phyllida Lloyd’s acclaimed manufacturing completely captures pupil life in Paris within the early Sixties – however equally it doesn’t shrink back from depicting the devastation loss of life brings when it touches the lives of a bunch of younger pals.
Revived by James Hurley (La rondine, 2023) and performed by Opera North Music Director Garry Walker, the 2 worldwide casts embody many younger singers making their Opera North debuts. Sharing the function of Mimì are Chilean soprano Isabela Díaz and American Olivia Boen. Italian tenor Anthony Ciaramitaro and British-American Joshua Blue tackle the function of Rodolfo, whereas the Armenian baritone Grisha Martirosyan and Korean Josef Jeongmeen Ahn sing Marcello. After showing within the function of Guglielmo in Così fan tutte for Opera North on the Nevill Holt Competition, Seán Boylan will be part of the corporate in Leeds as Schaunard. Elin Pritchard (Vixen, The Crafty Little Vixen, 2023) and Katie Chook (Eliza Doolittle, My Honest Girl, 2024) sing Musetta.
CELEBRATING CONTEMPORARY CREATIVES: Go the Spoon – David Fennessy NEW
Artistic group: Conductor Garry Walker; Director Nicholas Bone; Design Idea David Shrigley/ Nicholas Bone; Costume Designer David Shrigley
Undoubtedly the craziest ‘sort-of-opera’ provided this aspect of Christmas. Set on a daytime cookery programme, hosts June Spoon and Phillip Fork – assisted by a manic-depressive egg and a highly-strung banana – should put together a meal for Mr Granules, a monstrously demanding diner whose urge for food is aware of no bounds.
Served up by composer David Fennessy, artist David Shrigley and director Nicholas Bone, Go the Spoon is a darkly comedian feast of phrases (spoken and sung), music and puppetry, made with decidedly grownup substances. This would be the first main revival since its premiere at Glasgow’s Tramway in 2011 in a manufacturing specifically conceived for the Howard Meeting Room.
Authentic manufacturing by Magnetic North in collaboration with Crimson Notice Ensemble and Tramway
CELEBRATING STRONG WOMEN: The Marriage of Figaro – Mozart NEW
Artistic group: Conductor Valentina Peleggi/ Oliver Rundell; Director Louisa Muller; Set and Costume Designer Madeleine Boyd; Lighting Designer Malcolm Rippeth; Choreographer Rebecca Howell
A brand-new manufacturing of The Marriage of Figaro, which is definitely the quintessential nation home comedy, in addition to being one in all Mozart’s hottest operas. The composer’s elegant rating fizzes with excessive spirits whereas additionally plumbing the depths of emotion to specific each the enjoyment and ache of affection and need.
This new manufacturing marks the Opera North debut of Louisa Muller who might be directing a forged of singers who’re additionally new to the corporate, together with Hera Hyesang Park as Susanna, Liam James Karai as Figaro, Gabriella Reyes as Countess Almaviva, Hongni Wu as Cherubino and Jamie Woollard as Antonio. They are going to be joined by two returnees: James Newby (Demetrius, A Midsummer Night time’s Dream, 2024) as Depend Almaviva and Katherine Broderick (Brünnhilde, Siegfried, 2016) as Marcellina. This would be the first time Opera North has carried out the opera within the authentic Italian.
Alongside the primary manufacturing, Whistle Cease Opera: Marriage of Figaro, a brief, enjoyable, interactive model, will tour to venues throughout the North within the autumn.
CELEBRATING POWERFUL STORIES: Peter Grimes – Britten REVIVAL
Artistic group: Conductor Garry Walker; Director Phyllida Lloyd; Revival Director Karolina Sofulak; Set and Costume Designer Anthony Ward; Lighting Designer Paule Constable; Motion Director Tim Claydon
Though rooted in a small fishing group on the east coast of England, the battle on the coronary heart of Britten’s sea-swept opera is common. The fisherman Peter Grimes is an outsider, torn between the dream of a traditional life with Ellen Orford, a neighborhood schoolteacher, and the reality of his personal nature – at occasions visionary, at others violent. For the remainder of the group, he’s a channel for his or her worst fears and their deepest wishes.
Winner of the South Financial institution Present Opera Award, Phyllida Lloyd’s soul-searing manufacturing was hailed as an Opera North basic when it was first carried out. John Findon sings the title function, whereas Philippa Boyle and Blaise Malaba make their firm debuts as Ellen Orford and Hobson.
CELEBRATING YOUNG OPERA-GOERS: The Huge Opera Thriller
– for youngsters aged 5-12 and their households
First efficiency: Saturday 25 October 2025, Leeds Grand Theatre
Constructing on the success of The Huge Opera Journey which delighted youthful audiences final 12 months, The Huge Opera Thriller opens in Leeds in October, earlier than touring to Newcastle, Salford and Nottingham. Mini sleuths are invited to place their crime-solving abilities to the take a look at as they attempt to catch an skilled thief, all to the accompaniment of some superb operatic arias.
Written and directed by Jonathan Ainscough with design by Bek Palmer, this new musical extravaganza options reside music from the Orchestra of Opera North and offers the right introduction to opera for everybody.
CELEBRATING NEW FRIENDS: Opera North’s new five-year partnership with the Nevill Holt Competition commences this summer season, with Mozart’s comedian masterpiece Così fan tutte opening on Friday 6 June. Every year, the Competition welcomes internationally famend artists, musicians and writers to the attractive grounds of the Nevill Holt property in Leicestershire. This new partnership has been arrange with the shared ambition to maximise alternatives for performers and creatives, notably these initially of their careers in opera. A brand new Opera North manufacturing for the 2026 Competition might be introduced later this 12 months.
Opera North may also be operating a challenge with Streetwise Opera in Nottingham as a part of the initiative Reimagining the Classics. Working with their weekly opera group which includes homeless folks and people lately out of homelessness, Streetwise Opera might be creating a brief efficiency taking The Marriage of Figaro as their inspiration. This might be carried out on stage on the Theatre Royal in Nottingham with the Orchestra of Opera North and members of the Refrain in early March 2026, coinciding with Opera North’s residency within the metropolis.
CELEBRATING PARTICIPATION: Whereas providing structured vocal and instrumental studying pathways although our Expertise Growth Programme and delivering the extensively admired In Concord programme to over 3,200 younger folks every week, Opera North may also be operating a Key Stage 2 singing challenge from January to June 2026 based mostly on Michael Morpurgo’s e book Pricey Olly and composed by Nkeiru Okoye. The participative challenge will culminate in a sequence of semi-staged productions by which college students will carry out alongside skilled singers, in addition to musicians from the Orchestra of Opera North.
From Sofa to Refrain makes a welcome return for grownup singers in Autumn 2025, providing the possibility to sing with the Refrain of Opera North as a part of a closing reside/on-line hybrid efficiency within the Howard Meeting Room. New this 12 months is Sing ON: Come and Sing which can culminate with the individuals singing with the Orchestra of Opera North in Leeds Grand Theatre in February 2026.
CELEBRATING OUR ORCHESTRA: Along with its work on the primary stage, the Orchestra of Opera North makes an important contribution to the broader musical lifetime of the area, together with the Kirklees Live performance Season in Huddersfield and Dewsbury, outside concert events in Leeds’ Millennium Sq., and common appearances at festivals reminiscent of Buxton, Ryedale and Ripon.
Highlights of the 2025/26 orchestral season embody Opera North Music Director Garry Walker conducting Brahms’s Fourth Symphony and Rachmaninov’s Second, Elena Urioste enjoying Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, Alexander Gavrylyuk enjoying Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Dana Zemtsov performing Walton’s Viola Concerto. Becoming a member of the musicians might be internationally-renowned visitor conductors Chloe Rooke, Sora Elisabeth Lee and Karel Deseure.
Previous to that, there are two alternatives for folks to listen to the orchestra reside in Leeds when the favored programme of movies with reside scores continues on Thursday 30 October with Amadeus, Miloš Forman’s 1984 movie exploring the attainable rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. The next day, a scare is within the air with Alfred Hitchcock’s basic Sixties movie Psycho – the right solution to mark Halloween.
