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ROYAL OPERA
The
Royal Opera House
Covent Garden
London
Box Office: +44 020 7304 4000
Updated
10 April 2008
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Carmen
Georges Bizet
Main Auditorium
March 25 - April 17, 2008
The Spanish heat and
gypsy passion of Carmen take to the
stage as The Royal Opera presents the
first revival of Francesca Zambello's
vibrant production with Tanya McCallin's
richly coloured designs. It's
a great stage recreation of the sun-drenched
and sultry world of 19th-century Spain,
with its ranks of soldiers and crowds
of peasants, its gypsies and bullfighters,
its spectacle and its deadly, white-hot
emotions. Spanish-born Nancy Fabiola
Herrera has been greatly acclaimed as
the fickle temptress of the title, while
star tenor Marcelo Álvarez is
Don José, the soldier she forces
to murderous jealousy over her new affair
with the bullfighter Escamillo, played
by Kyle Ketelsen. It's a perfect
cast to bring alive the sexy solos,
rousing choruses, impassioned arias
and Spanish dances of one of the most
famously tuneful of all operas and one
of the most enduringly popular works
in the entire repertory.
The Minotaur
Harrison Birtwistle
Main Auditorium
April 15 -May 3, 2008
The world premiere of
a new work commissioned by The Royal
Opera brings to the stage a famous character
of Greek myth. Part man, part beast,
the Minotaur is trapped in a labyrinth
and constrained by his violent role
there, yet he longs to discover his
own identity and his own voice. Among
the innocents of a blood sacrifice Athens
must pay to Crete is Theseus, who has
come to challenge the violent Minotaur,
but also attracts the attention of Ariadne
- and it is her help that ensures
his success in the labyrinth.
Tosca
Giacomo Puccini
Main Auditorium
May 12 - June 5, 2008
Great music, a gripping
story and tragic end: Puccini's
Tosca. The story follows a complex and
ill-fated triangle of passions: the
naïve idealism of a painter, the
state-sanctioned sadism of the Chief
of Police and, caught between them,
the beautiful diva whose ability to
inspire passion is her fatal undoing.
Puccini's music has such great
set pieces such as the 'Te Deum',
'Vissi d'arte' and
'E lucevan le stelle', linked
by a musical drama that constantly winds
up the tension towards the inevitable,
fateful conclusion. Jonathan Kent's
detailed production draws fully on the
historical backdrop of Rome in 1800,
beautifully evoked in Paul Brown's
lavish designs. The pageantry of church
ritual, the darkness of a brooding study
with its hidden torture chamber and
the false optimism of a Roman dawn -
all throw into relief the love of Tosca
and Cavaradossi and the deadly, destructive
obsession of Scarpia.
Don
Carlo
Giuseppe Verdi
Main Auditorium
June 6 - July 3, 2008
Verdi's grand
opera interpretation of Schiller's
play takes in the sweep of 16th-century
history, political ambition and personal
emotions. King Philip II of Spain realizes
that his new wife Elisabetta does not
love him but instead has fallen for
his libertarian son, Don Carlo. With
the threatened vengeance of the spurned
Princess Eboli and the conflict between
the ideals of Rodrigo and the Grand
Inquisitor in the battle for the King's
influence, this is a drama of power
and psychology on an epic scale. This
major new production uses Verdi's
Italian version of 1886, with a stunning
international cast under conductor Antonio
Pappano. Nicholas Hytner – known
for his theatre direction with the National
Theatre and for such films as The Madness
of King George as well as for opera
– directs, while acclaimed international
stage designer Bob Crowley contributes
spacious and stylized sets alongside
period costumes.
Powder
Her Face
Thomas Adés
Linbury Studio
June 11 - June 22, 2008
Powder
Her Face is one of the great
successes of the recent opera repertory,
equally controversial with its sexually
explicit adult content. and highly acclaimed
for its creative originality and appeal
since its first performance in 1995.
Over two acts, the libretto describes
scenes around the life of the elderly
Margaret, Duchess of Argyll. Mocked
by the servants at the hotel in which
she lives and the subject of speculation
over her sexual scandals, she is a figure
out of place, time and money. Its first
performance at the Royal Opera House
is in a new production by The Royal
Opera in the Linbury Studio Theatre
with Carlos Wagner directing and Joan
Rodgers as the faded aristocrat. Thomas
Adès's music is written for an
ensemble of 15 players and displays
his typically creative ear for colour
and texture to heighten a drama of scandal
and suprising sympathy.
Ariadne
auf Naxos
Richard Strauss
Main Auditorium
June 16 - July 1, 2008
Whatever happens, the
show must goes on as Ariadne
auf Naxos looks at the serious
and comic sides of art – both
on stage and off – as a rich patron's
whims force a new opera and a harlequinade
together into one single work. Strauss's
music takes full advantage of the dramatic
potential: the intense lyricism of the
Composer, the richly scored encounter
of Ariadne and Bacchus, the virtuosic
coloratura of flirty but fickle Zerbinetta.
Such a musical tour de force needs a
world-class cast as here – led
by Deborah Voigt, a leading exponent
of her role, and joined by young British
singer Gillian Keith, winner of the
Ferrier Competition, in a major debut.
Christof Loy's popular production for
The Royal Opera combines witty detail
with a richly eclectic design of the
classic and contemporary, the grand
and the down-to-earth. With Mark Elder
conducting, everything about this revival
makes for an irresistible combination
of the fine and the fun.
Le
nozze di Figaro
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Main Auditorium
June 24 - July 19, 2008
Revolution is in the
air in this Season's revival of David
McVicar's wonderfully illuminating production
of Le nozze di Figaro, new to The Royal
Opera in 2006 to mark the 250th anniversary
of Mozart's birth. Life on an estate
in the late 1820s reveals with truth
and no little wit all the tensions between
master and servants, with the symptoms
of Europe's social upheaval never far
away. Count Almaviva's attempts to bed
his manservant Figaro's fiancé
Susanna are repeatedly thwarted by those
around him, including his own wife,
the Countess. In such enlightened times
if the Count wishes to dance, then Figaro
will make sure it is to his tune and
not the other way round.
Mozart's music makes
this one of the finest jewels in the
opera repertory, from the familiar first
notes of the energetic Overture to Figaro's
famous 'Non piü andrai' and the
genuine despair of the Countess at her
husband's infidelity, revealed in 'Porgi,
amor' and 'Dove sono'. All shades of
emotion are portrayed through the solos,
duets and ensembles, and for this revival
the cast of singers is an exceptionally
fine one to bring a Mozart masterpiece
to full dramatic life.
The
Rake's Progress
Igor Stravinsky
Main Auditorium
July 7 - July 18, 2008
Robert Lepage's recent
production of Stravinsky's opera The
Rake's Progress takes The Royal
Opera to Hollywood for its first Covent
Garden appearance. Hogarth's depiction
of a young man's dramatic seduction
and corruption by a pleasure-loving
society gains a new twist through celebrity
culture in the Los Angeles world of
movies and television. From star of
the silver screen to bankruptcy and
madness, it's all part of an inevitable
downward cycle for the 'hero' Tom Rakewell.
Stravinsky's opera is one of the most
performed of all modern operas, not
least for its fascinating mix of elements
– 18th-century with a 20th-century
twist – and will be one big operatic
rollercoaster of a ride, not least with
Thomas Adés conducting a cast
lead by Charles Castronovo, Sally Matthews
and John Relyea.
La
bohéme
Giacomo Puccini
Main Auditorium
July 13 - July 17, 2008
A lost key, an extinguished
candle and an accidental touch in the
dark – 'Che gelida manina...'.
So begins one of the great, tragic romances
of all opera as the cold hands of the
fragile seamstress Mimì warm
the heart of the poet Rodolfo in lyrical
seduction. Puccini's gloriously tuneful
work follows their story through a year
from that first meeting through jealous
separation to a poignant death-bed reconciliation.
Around them the spirit of bohemian life
is brought to life through the fiery
temper of Musetta and her lover, the
painter Marcello, and a myriad of other
colourful characters from the streets
of 1830s Paris. John Copley's popular
production is revived with all the authentic
period detail of the designs by the
late Julia Trevelyan Oman. With Cristina
Gallardo-Domas again as Mimì,
Roberto Aronica playing Rodolfo for
The Royal Opera for the first time and
Christian Badea conducting, and we have
the potent combination of great music
and intense passion in live performance.
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