Kidnapped by pirates and sold into a harem, Konstanze and Blonde plot their escape. But when hope seems lost, help comes from an unexpected quarter. In Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) Mozart’s colourful score is perfectly matched by David McVicar’s gorgeous, tender staging, set in the sun-filled gardens and shady terraces of an 18th-century palace.

Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Glyndebourne

A mysterious princess. A remote castle. A love triangle. Debussy’s breathtaking opera is a dark fairytale caught in a dream.

“No time, no place. No big scene.” So Debussy wrote to his teacher Ernest Guiraud in 1890. It was a kind of mission statement for his ideal style of opera: in a world of increasingly “big scenes” – courtesy of Wagner and Verdi – Debussy wanted something radically different.

After several false starts, he finally found what he was looking for in an enigmatic play by Maurice Maeterlinck called Pelléas et Mélisande, full of symbols, ambiguous meanings and shadowy characters. It was the perfect home for Debussy’s innovative approach to opera, and for his startlingly new musical language. He finished Pelléas et Mélisande, his only completed opera, in 1902. The critics were perplexed, but in more recent years it has become one of the most admired works in the repertoire, beguiling audiences time and again with its elusive, shimmering beauty.

Rory Kinnear directs a semi-staging of the opera, while Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and a dream of a cast, including Sophie Bevan and Jacques Imbrailo as the two lovers.

Aldeburgh Festival 2026: Pelléas et Mélisande

Snape Maltings

One extraordinary night, a young orphan named Sophie is snatched by a giant and taken far away to Giant Country. There she learns that human-eating giants are guzzling ‘norphans’ the world over. But she soon discovers that her new friend, the BFG, is different – he’s a dream-catching, snozzcumber-munching gentle soul who refuses to eat humans.

The BFG

Chichester Festival Theatre

Hailed by international critics as “a musical masterpiece” and “one of the finest operas of the 21st century,” this acclaimed work now comes to Denmark.

Written on Skin

Royal Danish Opera

Three angels look back to a period in the past when books were precious artefacts with texts written on skin. One of the angels acts out the role of an olden-day illustrator who has been commissioned by the rich and powerful Protector to create a beautifully illuminated manuscript setting out the Protector’s biography. In his patron’s home the angel encounters Agnès, the Protector’s younger wife, who is still a virgin on account of her husband’s self-imposed abstinence. Despite this, he is jealous and keeps a close eye on her – to no avail, because Agnès begins an affair with the angel in his incarnation as an artist. The Protector learns of their relationship and kills the illustrator. Then he serves his unwitting wife the heart of her lover as part of a meal.

Deutsche Oper Berlin

A storm rages off the coast of Crete, forcing King Idomeneo, who is returning from the Trojan War, to make an ill-fated promise to Neptune: if the enraged god lets him reach land safely, he will sacrifice the first man he meets. When Idomeneo arrives on the beach, he meets his son Idamante. But the unforgiving world of the gods seems determined to exact the king’s promise.

Idomeneo

Bebelplatz

South London in the late seventies. High unemployment, high inflation, food shortages and strikes. But despite the winter of discontent, 17-year-old Karim’s life is about to explode into glorious technicolour as he navigates a path to enlightenment. Or at the very least, Beckenham.

Vicki Mortimer

Events

Upcoming events

Jul 31 - Aug 28, 2026

Die Entführung aus dem Serail · Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Jul 31 - Aug 28, 2026

Die Entführung aus dem Serail · Glyndebourne

Past events

Jul 31 - Aug 28, 2026

Die Entführung aus dem Serail · Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Jul 31 - Aug 28, 2026

Die Entführung aus dem Serail · Glyndebourne

About

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