Costume Designer

Set Designer

Opera North presents a captivating production of Benjamin Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," set to enchant audiences from 12 October to 20 November 2024. This joyously theatrical adaptation of Shakespeare's beloved comedy unfolds in a world where the powerful Fairy King Oberon and Queen Tytania are embroiled in a fierce dispute, causing a climate catastrophe. Meanwhile, in Athens, the lives of two young women and their suitors take a tumultuous turn upon escaping to the woods, where love and chaos ensue, especially when the amateur actor Bottom finds himself in an unexpected transformation.

Directed by Martin Duncan and featuring a cast including James Laing as Oberon, Daisy Brown as Tytania, and Henry Waddington as Bottom, this production promises an intoxicating atmosphere where love is the ultimate drug. The opera, sung in English with English subtitles, is celebrated for Britten's tuneful, witty, and beguiling music that captures the essence of night, dreams, and the supernatural.

Performances are scheduled at various prestigious venues, including Leeds Grand Theatre, Newcastle Theatre Royal, The Lowry in Salford Quays, and Theatre Royal in Nottingham. The running time is approximately 3 hours, including one interval, ensuring an immersive experience. Ticket prices start from £16, with digital and printed programs available for purchase in advance.

Opera North offers a range of ticket packages and discounts, including season ticket packages, under 30s memberships, and new to opera discounts. Additionally, becoming a Friend of Opera North for just £5 per month grants early access to favorite seats, dress rehearsals, and exclusive events.

Booking dates vary by venue, with priority booking available for patrons and friends of Opera North. General ticket sales open shortly after, ensuring everyone has the opportunity to witness this spellbinding production.

Don't miss the chance to experience "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Opera North, a production full of wit, wonder, and laughter, hailed by critics as "wonderfully funny" and "about as good as it gets."

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A Midsummer Night's Dream

Leeds Grand Theatre

Newcastle Theatre Royal

Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall

The Quays

Wagnerites from around the world will descend upon Houston when HGO presents Parsifal, the composer’s final opera, full of shimmeringly beautiful music and spiritual and philosophical exploration. The revered masterpiece takes audiences on a mystical journey through a realm where time has no meaning and a group of knights are trying to protect the Holy Grail and their wounded king, Amfortas. He can only be healed by an innocent fool—the titular protagonist—but first Parsifal must undertake a quest to reclaim the Holy Spear, enduring tests including an attempted seduction by a bevy of gorgeous women. The opera will be presented in a stunning, sensual, colorful production from Tony Award-winning director John Caird. HGO Principal Guest Conductor Eun Sun Kim leads a cast of extraordinary Wagnerians including tenor Russell Thomas as Parsifal, soprano Christine Goerke as Kundry, bass Kwangchul Youn as Gurnemanz, and bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as Amfortas.

Parsifal

Wortham Theater Center

He's a beloved leader, a distinguished military commander and a devoted husband. But when an envious subordinate introduces the notion—just the slightest whispered hint—that Othello's wife Desdemona might possibly be unfaithful, it's enough to send him into a downward spiral of fury and murder.  Hailed as the pinnacle of the Italian operatic repertoire, Verdi’s transformation of the original Shakespeare play is a powerful drama of uncontrolled human emotion at its most extreme. Verdi's musical portrait of Otello’s descent into a tortured heart of darkness is explicit in every chilling detail as he destroys all in life that he holds dear.  Verdi master James Conlon takes command of the truly epic musical forces. The powerhouse cast is led by Artist in Residence Russell Thomas in the title role (considered the "Mount Everest" of the dramatic tenor repertoire). Rachel Willis-Sørensen makes a highly anticipated company debut as the doomed Desdemona and Igor Golovatenko is the sadistic Iago, slyly explpoiting Otello's one fatal flaw: jealousy.

Otello

Los Angeles Music Center

An opera about Auschwitz seemed unimaginable. And yet, it did. It was composed by Mieczysław Weinberg, a Polish-Jewish Varsovian who lost his family in the camp and of whom the opera's director, David Pountney, said that he "spent his life creating music in memory of his lost loved ones." Weinberg was inspired by the novel The Passenger (1962) by Zofia Posmysz. The author survived the camp. The decision to bear witness to the cruelty of the Holocaust was obvious to her. The Passenger describes a voyage on a luxury ocean liner, during which the Polish woman Marta recognizes the elegant woman, Lisa, an SS overseer from Auschwitz (the German woman's real name is Annelise Franz). Weinberg's music, in keeping with the action, is diverse, realistic, and symbolic at once; different when it accompanies conversations in the sun on the ship's deck, with the orchestra playing for the passengers to dance to, and different when the hell of Auschwitz unfolds below deck. The prisoners are of different nationalities, so their solo singing, as well as the seven-voice Song of Life and Death , is multilingual. The prisoners ' Requiem for the Black Wall echoes with the bell, Bach's Chaconne , and the camp orchestra. Weinberg's The Passenger, completed in 1968 in the Soviet Union, could not be performed there because its content was too reminiscent of Soviet labor camps. Only in 2006, after the composer's death, was it performed in Moscow in concert. Did staging an opera about Auschwitz seem impossible? And yet, it was. David Pountney produced it in 2010. First, there was the Bregenz Festival and Warsaw. Then London, Houston, New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Florida. And everywhere, every time: a stage bisected by light and sound. A cheerful, prosperous Europe. And the hell of the Holocaust. Its memory endures. The world cannot forget.

Costume Designer, Set Designer

Johan Engels

Events

Upcoming events

8 - 12 Mar, 2026

Passenger · Polish National Opera

Past events

Oct 12 - Nov 20, 2024

A Midsummer Night's Dream · Opera North

Jan 19 - Feb 4, 2024

Parsifal · Houston Grand Opera

About

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