Reuniting the team behind Peter Grimes, ENO’s 2014/15 season opens with a new production of Otello which opens on Saturday 13 September 2014.
ENO celebrates the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth with a new production of Verdi’s Otello, reuniting the team behind five-star smash hit Peter Grimes – director David Alden, conductor and ENO Music Director Edward Gardner and Australian heldentenor Stuart Skelton.
Marking his 30th year at ENO and 25 years since the premiere of his last Verdi opera with the company, A Masked Ball in 1989, David Alden’s production combines beautiful Byzantine-influenced imagery with nineteenth-century costumes designed by Jon Morrell (Top Hat, 2013 Olivier Award for Best Costume Design) and outstanding performances by a world-class cast, chorus and orchestra, led by Edward Gardner.
Edward has collaborated with David Alden on numerous occasions, including 2013 production of Billy Budd and 2006 production of Jen?fa.
Winner of Male Singer of the Year at 2014 International Opera Awards, Stuart Skelton makes his debut in the title role. In February 2014, Stuart’s performance of Peter Grimes was broadcast live to over 300 cinemas in UK and Ireland and was seen by over 17,000 people – the largest ever cinema audience for an opera by a British composer. Stuart will appear at the BBC Proms on 18 August in a performance of Rachmaninov’s The Bells, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Crouch End Festival Chorus conducted by Edward Gardner.
Completing the creative team is Lighting Designer Adam Silverman and Movement Director Maxine Braham who both worked alongside Alden and Gardner on their production of Peter Grimes.
Irish American baritone Brian Mulligan makes his role debut as Iago, while American rising star soprano Leah Crocetto makes her UK operatic debut as Desdemona, Otello’s unjustly accused wife. A former San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow, Leah was a finalist in the 2011 Cardiff Singer of the World competition and has sung the role of Desdemona to great acclaim in Bordeaux, Venice and Frankfurt.
Playing the role of Cassio is British tenor Allan Clayton, who was nominated as a Young Singer of the Year in the inaugural International Opera Awards. ENO Harewood Artist Barnaby Rea plays the role of Lodovico.
Other British castings include Cumbrian tenor Peter Van Hulle in the role of Roderigo, baritone Charles Johnston as Montano and ENO favourite Pamela Helen Stephen playing the role of Emilia.
Otello opens at the London Coliseum on 13 September 2014 for 10 performances – 13, 16, 19, 25 September and 9, 14, 17 October at 7.30pm and 27 September and 4, 11 October at 6.30pm.
A co-production with The Royal Swedish Opera and Teatro Real, Madrid