Celebrating their 25th anniversary, early music ensemble, Joglaresa, directed by Belinda Sykes, release Sing We Yule on 1st December 2017.

On 1st December, London-based early music ensemble, Joglaresa, directed by Carnegie Hall soloist Belinda Sykes, release Sing We Yule, their new album of medieval, folk, and contemporary song featuring guest soloist Dame Emma Kirkby. The sixth studio work by the ensemble, the disc celebrates the group’s 25th anniversary and 25 years of Belinda’s career as one of Britain’s most imaginative performers of medieval song. Sykes’ critically acclaimed approach to early music includes a unique penchant for improvisation, which constantly re-draws the distinction between composer and performer. Among the 21 tracks of Medieval, Renaissance and traditional Yuletide song are some of Joglaresa’s trademark genre- defying approach to traditional repertoire: a mash-up of medieval motet Ave Rosa, 80s band Dead Or Alive, and American rapper Flo Rida (although with words in Latin); an old-timey hoedown take on Ding Dong Merrily; a Pythonesque ‘Killer Rabbit’ instrumental complete with knife percussion. Highlighting Joglaresa’s trademark genredefying approach to traditional repertoire, Sing We Yule also features a mash-up of medieval motet Ave Rosa, 80s band Dead Or Alive, and American rapper Flo Rida (although with words in Latin).

Joglaresa tour Sing We Yule with dates on:

23 November – Andover

5 December – Chipping Sodbury

9 December – Hemel Hempstead

11 December – York

12 December – Skipton

14 December – Nottingham

16 December – Cutty Sark, London (Official CD Launch Concert)

19 December – Cockermouth

Opens Thursday 26 October at 7pm at the London Coliseum (6 performances)

Hailed as ‘inspired’ (The Evening Standard) and ‘outstanding’ (The Observer) at its premiere, Olivier Award-winning director Richard Jones’s ingenious production of Handel’s Rodelinda returns to the London Coliseum in October. Among the returning faces are soprano Rebecca Evans in the title role and baroque specialist Christian Curnyn as conductor, along with ENO favourite Susan Bickley.

One of Handel’s great operatic masterpieces, Nicola Francesco Haym’s libretto follows the travails of the queen Rodelinda and her fidelity to her husband Bertarido, presumed dead but returned to his kingdom in disguise. Jones’s production sets Handel’s bitter political drama in Fascist Italy, infusing it with the aesthetic of the surveillance state and authoritarian menace.

Returning to the title role which she sang to ‘just about perfection’ (The Daily Telegraph) in the original run, Welsh soprano Rebecca Evans further adds to her reputation as one the country’s great Handelians. Notable roles with the company include Romilda in 2002’s Xerxes and the Governess in David McVicar’s 2009 production of The Turn of the Screw.

Countertenor Tim Mead who sings the role of her husband Bertarido, was last seen at ENO as a ‘radiant’ (Gramophone), ‘ethereal voiced’ (Sunday Times) Voice of Apollo in 2013’s Death in Venice. His performance in Rodelinda follows a run of acclaimed international Handel roles including Goffredo in 2014’s Glyndebourne Rinaldo, Arsamene in Theater an der Wien’s 2015 Xerxes and earlier in 2017 Athamas for the Handel and Haydn Society’s Semele in Boston.

Rising Spanish tenor Juan Sancho makes his ENO debut as the villainous Grimoaldo, who attempts to usurp Bertarido’s throne. An accomplished international interpreter of Handel, his solo concert at the June 2017 Halle Handel Festival was ‘greeted with great enthusiasm’ (Bachtrack).

ENO favourite Susan Bickley returns to sing the rightful king’s sister, Eduige. Seen earlier this year at ENO in the premiere of Ryan Wigglesworth’s The Winter’s Tale, Sue also created roles in two recent ENO commissions;  the Mother in Tansy Davies’s award-winning Between Worlds and Jocasta in the world premiere of Julian Anderson’s Thebans in 2014.

Neal Davies, who also performed in the world premiere of The Winter’s Tale, sings Garibaldo. A regular singer with English National Opera, Davies’s performance in Xerxes (2014) was described as ‘so ballsy … that one wished the composer had given [him] more opportunities to strut [his] stuff’ (The Daily Telegraph). Countertenor Christopher Lowrey completes the singing cast, making his ENO debut as Unulfo. Actor Matt Casey reprises his silent role as Flavio from the original run.

Conductor Christian Curnyn is well known as one of the UK’s foremost baroque  interpreters: ’Find anything exciting happening in period opera in the UK and Curnyn will be involved’ (The Spectator). He founded the Early Opera Company in 1994 in order to champion the relevance of baroque opera, and has won great acclaim for his recordings and performances in the area since, including his ‘terrific ensemble playing’ (The Independent) for the five-star Partenope at ENO in March 2017.

Richard Jones has a long creative relationship with ENO.  He won the 2015 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for his much-lauded The Mastersingers of Nuremburg,  The Girl of the Golden West  and Rodelinda. The revival is directed by Donna Stirrup, a frequent ENO staff director who also directed last season’s revival of Tosca.

Rodelinda opens on Thursday 26 October at 7pm at the London Coliseum for 6 performances: 01, 03, 09 and 15 November at 7pm and 11 November at 6pm.

Opens Saturday 18 November at 7.30pm at the London Coliseum (5 performances)

Following his 2011 premiere of Two Boys at ENO, composer Nico Muhly returns to the company with this second world premiere, the psychological thriller Marnie.

Based on Winston Graham’s classic 1961 novel with a libretto by Nicholas Wright, Marnie will bring together an extraordinary array of operatic talent: it marks conductor Martyn Brabbins’ debut as Music Director at ENO and Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer’s UK operatic debut. Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke will lead the cast in the title role, while Julian Crouch and 59 Productions return to ENO with their unique video designs.

The novel, also famously adapted by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1964 film of the same name, tells the story of Marnie as she embezzles money from her employers before changing her identity and moving on. Finally caught by her boss Mark Rutland and blackmailed into marriage, she must confront the hidden trauma in her past.

Nico Muhly is the youngest composer ever commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, New York, a ‘phenomenon’ (Gramophone) whose work spans chamber works, sacred music, film scores as well as opera. His previous premiere for ENO, Two Boys, was called ‘serious and radiant’ by the New York Times and as ‘one of the most celebrated and sought after classical composers of the last decade’ (The Guardian) this premiere will be a major highlight of the operatic calendar; it will go on to play at the Met for the 2019/20 season.

Muhly comments:

‘I am particularly excited to present this premiere at ENO. Librettist Nicholas Wright and I have worked very closely with director Michael Mayer and the excellent design team of 59 Productions and Julian Crouch to create something particularly suited to ENO – a house committed to daring new productions.  I am looking forward to working with the ENO Chorus again, with whom I had a great deal of fun during Two Boys, and am so pleased to work with Martyn Brabbins in his first production as ENO Music Director.’

Director Michael Mayer has helmed many of Broadway’s most impressive productions, winning the Tony Award for Best Director for Spring Awakening in 2007 and garnering great praise for his 2014 production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Having directed the 2012 Las Vegas-set Rigoletto for the Metropolitan Opera, New York, this marks his operatic debut on the London stage after directing the musical Funny Girl here in 2016.

English National Opera (ENO) it delighted to announce four new ENO Harewood Artists, joining the eight singers that will remain part of the programme. David Ireland, Božidar Smiljanic, Katie Stevenson and Elgan Llyr Thomas will join the ENO Harewood Artist programme for two years, beginning in the 17/18 season, alongside existing ENO Harewood Artists Katie Coventry, Eleanor Dennis, Matthew Durkan, Rhian Lois, Soraya Mafi, Samantha Price, Andri Bjorn Robertsson and David Webb.

The ENO Harewood Artists, formerly the ENO Junior Company Principals and ENO Young Singers Programme, enables exceptionally talented British and British-trained singers to perform career-building roles with a major opera company while receiving specialist coaching, support and guidance. Across the 2017/18 season over 20 principal roles will be taken by current or former ENO Harewood Artists.

The ENO Harewood Artist programme began in 1998 and is renowned for its development of many of the UK’s most cherished young opera singers. Former ENO Harewood Artists include Sophie Bevan, Mary Bevan, Katherine Broderick, Allan Clayton, Madeleine Shaw, Nicky Spence, Julia Sporsén, Sarah Tynan and Kate Valentine.

This season, a number of small changes have been made to the programme in order to ensure that it continues to develop these young singers in the most supportive way possible. As ENO is now planning its opera seasons further in advance, a tailored, multi-year development programme has been established for each singer to ensure that they are performing and covering the roles most suitable to their voices across the next two years.

Under the scheme’s new structure, ENO will now cast Harewood Artists approximately 18 months before the start of the season in which they will first appear. They will receive coaching from that moment, alongside repertoire guidance and career advice. In addition to regular coaching sessions, the singers are awarded a bursary to enable them to partake in diction and language coaching, dialogue coaching, acting and dramaturgy sessions, performance psychology and Alexander Technique.

Mezzo-soprano Katie Stevenson will make her professional debut at ENO in Marnie in November, after graduating from the opera course at the Royal Academy of Music this summer. She will also cover the role of Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Bass-baritone David Ireland joins from the National Opera Studio and will cover the role of Dr Bartolo in The Barber of Seville. Tenor Elgan Llyr Thomas will make his ENO stage debut at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre as Prologue/Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw. Prior to this he will be covering the role of Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville. Bass-baritone Božidar Smiljanic will take to the London Coliseum stage as the Marchese d’Obigny in La traviata. Having previously debuted at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Garsington, Božidar will also cover the role of Figaro in ENO’s The Marriage of Figaro this spring.

Opens 5 October at the London Coliseum at 7.30pm for 9 performances

Thirty years after it first opened at the London Coliseum in November 1987, Jonathan Miller’s production of Rossini’s comic masterpiece The Barber of Seville returns to ENO for its thirteenth revival. Over the years it has become ‘a national institution’ (The Daily Telegraph) with generations of opera-goers enjoying Miller’s deft handling of this great operatic farce. For this anniversary production the original Figaro from the 1987 run, Alan Opie, takes the role of his antagonist, Dr Bartolo.

The period setting of 18^th century Seville is host to a classic commedia dell’arte plot. The dashing Count Almaviva attempts to win the beautiful Rosina from under the clutches of her lecherous guardian Dr Bartolo, with the help of his barber Figaro and a series of cunning disguises.

In the title role is Australian baritone Morgan Pearse, returning to ENO after his ‘wonderfully agile’ (The Guardian) Figaro in the 2015 run. He is joined by Mexican tenor Eleazar Rodríguez in the role of Count Almaviva, also returning from his ‘dashing’ (The Sunday Express) performances in 2015.

English soprano Sarah Tynan makes her role debut as Rosina. She was last seen on the Coliseum stage earlier in 2017 in Christopher Alden’s five-starPartenope for which she was widely praised (‘dazzling’ – The Independent, ‘divine’ – What’s on Stage). Her previous roles at ENO include a ‘superbly beautiful’ (Opera Today) Romilda in the 2014 performances of Xerxes, as well as Marzelline in 2013’s Fidelio and Zerlina in 2012’s Don Giovanni.

Also making a role debut is English baritone Alan Opie as Dr Bartolo. With a significant career of highly acclaimed performances behind him (including Figaro in the original version of this production), this adds another classic character to his roster. A veteran especially of Miller productions at ENO, he has twice sung the title role in his Rigoletto (2003 and 2006). Most recently seen at ENO for his ‘outstanding’ title role in 2012’s The Death of Klinghoffer, he returns in the spring to sing Giorgio Germont in La traviata.

The role of Don Basilio is sung by Alastair Miles (‘the finest British bass of his generation’ –The Guardian) who was called ‘the ideal Don Basilio’ (The York Press) when he sang the role for Opera North in 2015. His numerous performances at ENO include the role of Alfonso in 2011’s Lucrezia Borgia.

English mezzo-soprano Yvonne Howard, ‘one of the finest singing actresses this country has produced’ (The Guardian), sings the housekeeper Berta. She has previously been seen at ENO in numerous roles including Katisha in the 2012 and 2015 runs of Jonathan Miller’s production of The Mikado. She returns in February to sing the Queen of the Fairies in Cal McCrystal’s new production of Iolanthe.

ENO Harewood Artist Matthew Durkan returns to sing Fiorello, the role with which he made his ENO debut in 2015. He was earlier seen in 2017 alongside Sarah Tynan in Partenope, widely noted for his ‘comic flair’ (The Daily Telegraph).

British conductor Hilary Griffiths makes his ENO debut after a highly distinguished career on the continent. His positions have included Chief Conductor of the State Opera, Prague, General Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra and Opera in Regensburg, and Principal Staff Conductor at the Cologne Opera.

Peter Relton returns once again after directing the 2015 run. His previous directorial engagement was launching the new Grange Park Opera with his inaugural production of Tosca (‘a remarkable achievement’- The Financial Times). The designs are by Tanya McCallin and lighting design is by ENO Head of Production Tom Mannings. The translation is by Amanda and Anthony Holden.

The Barber of Seville is chronologically the first of Beaumarchais’s ‘Figaro trilogy’. Its sequel, adapted earlier by Mozart, is The Marriage of Figaro,which will be performed by ENO in the spring, directed by Fiona Shaw.

The Barber of Seville opens at the London Coliseum on 05 October for 9 performances – 05, 10, 13, 18, 20, 25 and 30 October at 7.30pm and 07 and 28 October at 6.30pm.

500 tickets for £20 or less are available for each performance. Tickets start from £12.

 Opens on Thursday 28 September at 7.30pm at the London Coliseum for 16 performances

Following the success of Akhnaten in 2016, director Phelim McDermott and theatre company Improbable return to ENO with a new production of Verdi’s Aida.

In addition to the forces of Improbable, acclaimed female-led contemporary circus company Mimbre and renowned puppeteer Basil Twist round off an artistic team at the forefront of theatrical innovation.

Phelim McDermott comments:

‘I’ve never directed something like Aida before, but everyone knows the opera – it is the archetypal operatic love story. It’s a story worthy of the thing that only opera can do, which is to create theatre, music and drama at the same time. For us it’s like a sister production to Akhnaten – you can see that it’s born from the same kind of impulses. I would say, don’t expect to see Ancient Egypt on stage. Do expect to see a wonderful, intimate, moving story.’

Sharing the title role of the tragic Ethiopian princess who must choose between her homeland and her love will be two sopranos whose previous performances as Aida have received wide praise. Latonia Moore will sing the role from the 28 September to the 27 October and Morenike Fadayomi will take over from the 31 October to the 2 December.

Welsh tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones makes his second appearance for ENO this year as the captain of the guard and lover of Aida, Radamès.

Mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung makes her company debut as Amneris, Aida’s rival in love.  Also making her company debut, Dana Beth Miller takes over the role from her from the 31 October to the 2 December.

Rising South African bass-baritone Musa Ngqungwana makes his UK operatic debut as the defeated Ethiopian ruler Amonasro. Bass Matthew Best returns to ENO to sing the King.

British bass Brindley Sherratt returns to ENO as Ramfis and the cast is completed by ENO Harewood Artists Eleanor Dennis and David Webb as the High Priestess and Messenger respectively.

Leading the ENO Orchestra in the pit will be Canadian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, who makes a very welcome return after her  debut in 2014 with Richard Jones’s Olivier Award-winning The Girl of the Golden West.

The Movement Director is US puppeteer, silk artist and designer Basil Twist, one of the most influential and admired practitioners in his field: ‘no theatre artist in New York is showing more poetic force or technical skill than the puppeteer Basil Twist’ (The New Yorker).

ENO will collaborate with the Victoria & Albert Museum and Royal Opera House around their exhibition Opera: Passion, Power and Politics (30 September 2017 – 25 February 2018). As part of ENO’s involvement in the exhibition, ENO Baylis (our learning and participation programme) will develop a site-specific free public performance involving over 100 diverse community participants and professional artists inspired by ENO’s new production of Aida. This performance follows the success of our Millions of Years project in 2016, where a performance inspired by Akhnaten culminated in the Great Court of the British Museum, watched by over 3,000 people.

Aida opens on Thursday 28 September at 7.30pm at the London Coliseum for 16 performances: 03, 06, 09, 11 19 21 27, 31 October, 10, 17, 27, 29 November at 7.30pm, 14 October and 4 November at 6.30pm, and 2 December at 3pm.