Lighting Designer

This season, Giant Steps presents two of George Balanchine’s most famous works, Apollo and The Four Temperaments. And then Christopher Wheeldon takes up the baton with the ballet Corybantic Games.

Giant Steps

Royal Danish Opera

A Tribute to Balanchine and Wheeldon with Pure and Powerful Dance.

This season, Giant Steps presents two of George Balanchine’s most iconic masterpieces—Apollo and Symphony in C—alongside Christopher Wheeldon’s Corybantic Games, which carries the torch forward into the 21st century.

Cultures collide in Puccini’s poignant tale of a loyal geisha and a callous American naval officer whose fleeting romance leaves only devastation behind. In an exciting casting coup, three of today’s leading sopranos make their Met role debuts as Cio-Cio-San in a single season: Ailyn Pérez, Sonya Yoncheva, and Elena Stikhina. Tenors SeokJong Baek, Adam Smith—in his Met debut—and Matthew Polenzani co-star as Pinkerton in Anthony Minghella’s production, an “inspired vision” (The New York Times) that has become a classic.

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Madama Butterfly

Lincoln Center

Cio-Cio-San, on the other hand, takes the marriage very seriously. She converts to the Christian faith and accepts the break with her family. Pinkerton returns to the USA.

Vienna State Opera

1930, India. Flora Crewe, a noted Bloomsbury Group poet, undertakes a journey through India for her health. Free-spirited and without social inhibitions she unsettles most people she meets, but secretly captivates Nirad Das, a handsome Indian painter. 

1980s England. Flora’s sister, Mrs Swan, is visited by an American biographer trying to uncover exactly what took place on the trip – and then Das’ son appears in her garden with a painting of Flora by his father – a nude…

Satirising the self-importance of both academia and the ruling class, Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink is an evocative meditation on art and love, exploring how creativity can bridge even the most profound cultural barriers.

Indian Ink

Hampstead Theatre

A E Housman is, as he understands it, finally dead. The noted Latin scholar and celebrated poet of A Shropshire Lad is being ferried across the Styx to Hades – but beyond the stygian gloom on the other side of the river he finds, to his surprise, the Oxford University of his youth. Alive with the academic debates that shaped his work and the friendships that shaped his life, this is the Oxford of Ruskin and Pater; a place still marked by the brilliance of a recently departed student called Wilde…

The Invention of Love

Parisian party girl Violetta is determined to leave her scandalous past behind her. She seizes the chance for a new life with the adoring young Alfredo, but when his disapproving father appears, Violetta is forced to make an impossible choice between duty and desire.

La traviata

Glyndebourne

“For idle hearts and hands and minds the Devil finds work to do”. Igor Stravinsky saw William Hogarth’s set of eight 18th century paintings and engravings of London life and created a groundbreaking opera on them. WH Auden’s poetic English libretto resonates with the speech and danger of those London streets. The Rake’s Progress is a devastating morality play, packed with wit, satire, high comedy, and tragedy. It dances on a pin of laughter and ridicule. Stravinsky’s score is a modern Mozart opera, infused with delicious parody and celebration of the earlier genius’ music. This new production will be created by the celebrated prize-winning director/designer Antony McDonald. Tom Primrose, our 2023 chorus master, conducts. The cast is a roll-call of British stars. Emerging tenor Adam Temple Smith and Alexandra Oomens, critically praised as Euridice and Belinda in our 2023 Double Bill, sing the young lovers Tom Rakewell and Anne Trulove. Scottish/Iranian bass-baritone Michael Mofidian is Nick Shadow; Rosie Aldridge Baba the Turk, Catherine Wyn-Rogers Mother Goose and John Graham Hall the Auctioneer, Sellem. Tears of laughter and sadness will flow in equal measure.

The Rake’s Progress

The Grange at Northington

Love conquers all in ancient Rome. The baddies win, the goodies are banished or killed. Social advancement and power politics govern Monteverdi’s soap opera: the first great work of baroque musical theatre. A stellar international cast includes the return of Italian star Anna Bonitatibus (Il ritorno d’Ulisse and Agrippina) as the rejected empress Ottavia. Another Grange Festival favourite, Kitty Whately is Poppea, paired with 'lyric tenor going places' and finalist in our 2018 International Singing Competition, Sam Furness as Nerone. And we welcome acclaimed American counter-tenor Christopher Lowrey as Ottone, New Zealand Bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu as Seneca and the popular German soprano Vanessa Waldhart as Drusilla. The groundbreaking instrumental ensemble La Nuova Musica is led by David Bates. Our new production, in partnership with Oper Halle, will be created by director Walter Sutcliffe and designer Jon Bausor, the team whose brilliant Agrippina at The Grange Festival in 2018 caused such a stir.

L'incoronazione di Poppea

In her Met debut, Asmik Grigorian tackles the demanding role of Cio-Cio-San, the trusting geisha at the heart of Puccini’s tragedy. Tenor Jonathan Tetelman is the callous American naval officer Pinkerton whose betrayal destroys her. Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong is the steadfast maid Suzuki, and baritone Lucas Meachem is the American consul Sharpless. Acclaimed maestro Xian Zhang makes her Met debut conducting Anthony Minghella’s vivid production.

Puccini’s Madama Butterfly

Miller Symphony Hall

Three extraordinary sopranos—Aleksandra Kurzak, Eleonora Buratto, and Asmik Grigorian (in her highly anticipated Met debut)—tackle the demanding role of Cio-Cio-San, the loyal geisha at the heart of Puccini’s devastating tragedy. Tenors Matthew Polenzani and Jonathan Tetelman co-star as the callous American naval officer Pinkerton, whose betrayal destroys her. Mezzo-sopranos Elizabeth DeShong and Eve Gigliotti share the role of the steadfast maid Suzuki, and baritone Davide Luciano and Lucas Meachem are the American consul Sharpless. Acclaimed maestro Xian Zhang makes her Met debut conducting Anthony Minghella’s vivid production.

For the naval lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, his marriage to Cio-Cio-San, known as Butterfly, is a non-committal convenience during his stay in Nagasaki.

felt  Butterfly

Living Legacies not only brings together two groundbreaking choreographers in George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton whose works remain “state of the art” for any ballet company and who had a decisive influence on the development of classical dance, but also leads us into the present with Christopher Wheeldon, making continuities and discontinuities evident. The legacy of classical ballet lives on, not just by continuing choreographic traditions, but also by rethinking and reinterpreting them and through the dancers who perform them in the here and now.

Living Legacies

London, «in the fall of the 16th century». Elizabetta I feels neglected by Roberto Devereux, Earl of Essex, with whom she is madly in love. Two of the Queen’s advisors, Lord Cecil and Raleigh, Essex’s enemies, ask her to charge him with treason for his lenient behaviour in the war against Spain. Elisabetta receives Roberto, who is detached and reserved. The Duke of Nottingham is also disturbed by the sadness of his wife Sara whom he has spotted embroidering a blue scarf: he therefore confides in Essex, ignoring the fact that his friend is himself in love with Sara. On a late-night rendezvous with the woman, Essex reproaches her for marrying Nottingham; Sara, on her part, reproaches him for wearing a ring on his finger given to him by the Queen, as a pledge of mercy in the event of his conviction. As a parting gift, Essex gives Sara Elisabetta’s ring and Sara hands him her scarf.

Lighting Designer

Peter Mumford

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 18, 2026 - Feb 11, 2027

Living Legacies · Wiener Staatsoper

Oct 11, 2026

Roberto Devereux · Fondazione Teatro Donizetti

15 - 24 Nov, 2026

Madama Butterfly · Wiener Staatsoper

Past events

May 29 - Jun 5, 2026

Giant Steps · Det Kongelige Teater

21 - 26 May, 2026

Giant Steps · Det Kongelige Teater

About

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