The arts may be suffering from extensive cuts, but ENO have just released plans for an innovative and challenging new season which will include ten new productions, and four major revivals.
Terry Gilliam returns to ENO
Terry Gilliam returns to ENO following his fantastic success with the critically acclaimed and sell-out The Damnation of Faust in 2011. Gilliam will direct another Berlioz opera: Benvenuto Cellini, the technically challenging and rarely performed opera in two acts based loosely on the life of the Florentine sculptor of the title. Gilliam continues his successful relationship with ENO and Edward Gardner, who conducts.
A world premiere from Julian Anderson and Frank McGuinness
Music Director Edward Gardner leads Julian Anderson’s new opera, Thebans, with a libretto by celebrated author and playwright Frank McGuinness. Directed by Pierre Audi, founder of The Almeida Theatre and currently director of The Netherlands Opera and the Holland Festival, this world premiere will mark Audi’s return to London after 30 years. This is the first opera by Anderson, who is Professor and Composer in Residence at Guildhall School Music and Drama.
A new space for contemporary opera with AMBIKA P3
Joe Hill-Gibbins, one of Britain’s most exciting young theatre directors, will direct Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face at Ambika P3. Last year Hill-Gibbins directed a delirious and disturbing production of the Jacobean classic The Changeling at the Young Vic, following on from his fresh, critically acclaimed revivals of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Glass Menagerie and Brecht’s A Respectable Wedding. Ambika P3 is the University of Westminster’s space for contemporary art, architecture and music, converted from the vast former subterranean concrete construction hall of the School of Engineering at Baker Street, London. Dedicated to innovation, experimentation and learning, the programme has been conceived as a laboratory and meeting place for practitioners, industry and academia.
Major directorial talent excels at ENO, bringing fresh interpretations of core repertoire
Artistic Director of Complicite, lauded actor and director of ENO’s critically acclaimed A Dog’s Heart, Simon McBurney will direct ENO’s new production of The Magic Flute. This co-production with The Netherlands Opera received its premiere recently in Amsterdam. Katie Mitchell, who directed Idomeneo for ENO in 2010 and After Dido in 2009, will return this season to direct a new Così Fan Tutte, with a libretto by celebrated playwright Martin Crimp. Calixto Bieito returned to London and ENO in 2012, after 8 years, with an acclaimed production of Carmen. He continues his relationship with the company, opening the 13/14 season with the powerful Fidelio, a co-production with Bayerische Staatsoper. Celebrated ENO Olivier Award-winning opera director Christopher Alden, currently directing Le Nozze di Figaro with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic, brings two new co-productions with Canadian Opera Company to ENO this season: Rigoletto and Die Fledermaus.
Matthew Barney’s new work
ENO often aims to extend its relationships with directors and composers, such as work with Damon Albarn and the hugely successful Dr Dee of 2012, to the multifaceted collaboration with Michel van der Aa and Sunken Garden of 2013 or Olga Neuwerth and David Lynch’s Lost Highway of 2008. River of Fundament is a new film/music project from artist Matthew Barney and Composer Jonathan Bepler Loosely based on Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings, the film explores the seven stages of the soul’s departure from the deceased body as it passes from death to rebirth in accordance with Egyptian mythology.
Fidelio
Opens: 25 September 2013 (7 performances)
A co-production with Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich
Die Fledermaus
Opens: 30 September 2013 (11 performances)
A co-production with Canadian Opera Company
New production supported by Lord and Lady Laidlaw
Madam Butterfly
Opens: 14 October 2013 (14 performances)
A co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, New York and the Lithuanian National Opera
Original production supported by Lord and Lady Laidlaw
The Magic Flute
Opens: 7 November 2013 (12 performances)
A co-production with De Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam and International Festival of Lyric Art, Aix-en-Provence, and in collaboration with Complicite
Satyagraha
Opens: 20 November 2013 (6 performances)
A co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and in collaboration with Improbable
Original production supported by ENO’s Contemporary Opera Group
Peter Grimes
Opens: 29 January 2014 (8 performances)
A co-production with De Vlaamse Opera, Opera de Oviedo and Deutsche Oper Berlin
Original production supported by ENO’s English Opera Group
Rigoletto
Opens: 13 February 2014 (11 performances)
A co-production with Canadian Opera Company
New production supported by a syndicate of individual donors
Rodelinda
Opens: 28 February 2014 (8 performances)
A co-production with the Bolshoi Opera, Russia
New production supported by Colwinston Charitable Trust and a syndicate of individual donors
Powder Her Face
Opens: 2 April 2014 (9 site-specific performances at Ambika P3)
Thebans
Opens: 3 May 2014 (8 performances)
A co-production with Bonn Oper
New production supported by The Boltini Trust, PRS for Music Foundation and ENO’s Contemporary Opera Group
Cosi Fan Tutte
Opens: 16 May 2014 (12 performances)
A co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, New York
Benvenuto Cellini
Opens: 5 June 2014 (8 performances)
A co-production with De Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam
New production supported by the Peter Moores Foundation’s Swansong Project 2013–2015 and a syndicate of individual donors
The Pearl Fishers
Opens: 16 June 2014 (9 performances)
River of Fundament
Opens 29 June 2014 (3 viewings)
River of Fundament is presented worldwide on behalf of the artist by Manchester International Festival