Allan Clayton

Daniel Okulitch

Nicholas Carter

Laurence Kilsby

William Thomas

Sam Carl

Clive Bayley

Daniel Norman

Dingle Yandell

Alex Otterburn

Thomas Mole

Alasdair Elliott

Ru Charlesworth

Samuel Dale

Michael Ronan

Paule Constable

Christopher Oram

Michael Grandage

London Philharmonic Orchestra

The Glyndebourne Chorus

Britten’s gripping psychological drama returns in this award-winning staging.

When a young sailor is unjustly accused of mutiny, it triggers a tragic sequence of events. Good and evil, innocence and corruption come together in this heartbreaking opera, a seafaring epic brought to vivid life in Michael Grandage’s evocative, claustrophobic production.

Michael Grandage returns to direct Britten’s opera, not seen at Glyndebourne for a over decade. Nicholas Carter will conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Thomas Mole will play in the title role, Olivier Award-winner Allan Clayton and Sam Carl make their role debuts playing Captain Vere and John Claggart. See full cast and creative team details here.

Billy Budd

Glyndebourne

Sparks fly in this uproarious tussle for centre stage.

The richest man in Vienna has commissioned an evening’s entertainment. But when a tragic opera and a comedy troupe are forced to share the same stage, all bets are off. Strauss’ opera-within-an-opera is part farce, part dream-like fantasy, set to one of his most luscious scores.
Laurent Pelly returns to Glyndebourne to direct this new staging, with Robin Ticciati conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Adriadne Auf Naxos

Passion, blood and betrayal in Puccini’s tragic thriller.

Rome trembles under Scarpia’s iron fist. Only the diva Tosca dares defy him – but in a corrupt world, love is no match for power. This high-stakes love story, with its sweepingly romantic score, is staged at Glyndebourne for the first time.

The opening cast includes Caitlin Gotimer as Floria Tosca, Matteo Lippi as Mario Cavaradossi and Vladislav Sulimsky as Baron Scarpia, with Robin Ticciati conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

The second cast will be conducted by Jordan de Souza and will feature Natalya Romaniw as Floria Tosca, Atalla Ayan as Mario Cavaradossi and Alfred Walker as Baron Scarpia.

Tosca

Tchaikovsky’s explosive Manfred Symphony meets the sunlit warmth of Brahms’s Violin Concerto.

Manfred is an outsider – a purposeless spirit, tormented by impossible desires and driven into the wilderness by a society whose conventions he rejects. Tchaikovsky sensed a kindred spirit in Byron’s brooding anti-hero, and his explosive Manfred Symphony contains some of the most uncompromising (and the most tender) music he ever wrote. Edward Gardner adores it, but it’s a hard act to follow. So we’re beginning the concert with the serene melodies and sunlit warmth of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, played tonight by a good friend of the LPO – Julia Fischer, a violinist who lives every note she plays.

Julia Fischer plays Brahms

Southbank Centre

A political prisoner lies chained in his cell. But someone has remembered his plight – and in Beethoven’s Leonore Overture a whole drama of tyranny, freedom and courage plays out in some of the most thrilling sounds ever written for an orchestra. And that’s just the start of today’s adventure. There are fireworks from the LPO’s own Principal Trumpet Tom Nielsen, before conductor Adam Hickox whirls us away to the sun-kissed slopes of Brahms’s gorgeous Second Symphony. Written on holiday in the Austrian Alps and filled with lullabies and waltzes, this is music as bottled happiness: a taste of summer for these grey November days.

Brahms’s Second

Eastbourne Theatres

A king, a queen; his favourite and her lover.

Power and sex are a dangerous combination, and when the rulers of medieval England played the game of thrones, they either won or they died. The life of King Edward II inspired Marlowe’s classic tragedy, but Sir George Benjamin and Martin Crimp turn it inside out, in an opera that exposes the raw emotions of four characters locked in a deadly embrace. This is Lessons in Love and Violence, and it caused a sensation when it opened at the Royal Opera in 2018. Edward Gardner has assembled a world-beating cast for this one-off concert performance.

Lessons in Love and Violence

And if you’ve experienced ‘PatKop’ in action, you’ll already know why she’s acquired a cult following – and why she’s the perfect violinist to explore the secrets and truths of Shostakovich’s searing post-war Concerto. It’s a powerful counterpart to Rachmaninov’s volcanic First Symphony, conducted by Edward Gardner – the dark, storm-swept sound of a young composer testing his genius to breaking point and beyond. A rarely-heard early gem from Rachmaninov launches a concert of thrilling extremes.

Patricia Kopatchinskaja plays Shostakovich

The music of the North is alive with colour; you just need to listen.

A bright, rippling song. A flash of multicoloured plumage. The iridescent marvel of the Aurora Borealis. The music of the North is alive with colour; you just need to listen, and no-one makes listening more of an adventure than Swedish clarinettist extraordinaire Martin Fröst. For him, there’s a ‘sort of magic’ in the act of playing, and tonight he leads us on an unstoppable dance and conjures a brand-new concerto out of silence: Jacob Mühlrad’s extraordinary meditation on Jewish spirituality. Andrea Tarrodi’s joyous musical aviary and Sibelius’s lush, windswept First Symphony complete a vibrant programme from guest conductor Anja Bihlmaier.

Sibelius’s First

Join clarinettist Martin Fröst – renowned for his virtuosity and adventurous spirit – and vocalist Matilda Fröst, in the Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer for an intimate late-night performance.

With a quintet of LPO strings, they move from Bach inventions and Mozart quintets to jazz-inflected and contemporary arrangements, showcasing both the versatility of the clarinet and Fröst’s extraordinary artistry.

After Dark: Martin & Matilda Fröst

Join the LPO and presenter Rachel Leach as we uncover some of these secret codes, focusing on highlights from Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, along with other brilliant music by Beethoven, Bacewicz and Brahms. You can even join in with the Orchestra in our new participation piece, and find out all about the meaningful messages in the most marvellous music!

Age recommendation 6+

FUNharmonics: The Big Enigma

A concert filled with the energy and promise of spring.

‘What beauty!’ declared Sibelius when he saw a flight of wild swans, and the melody they suggested to him is the kind of tune that comes once in a lifetime. But that’s just the climax of his epic Fifth Symphony – part of a concert filled with the energy and promise of spring. LPO Fellow Conductor Enyi Okpara – a true rising star – begins with the open spaces and big, fresh tunes of Copland’s great American ballet, before summoning shimmering magic from Liadov’s Enchanted Lake. And cellist Laura van der Heijden plays a rapturous new classic by the Master of the King’s Music, Errollyn Wallen.

Sibelius’s Fifth

They called it ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’, but when Brahms wrote his First Symphony he was very much his own man, and this mighty musical struggle is filled with a profound poetry and warmth. It’s ideal for LPO Principal Guest Conductor Karina Canellakis: critics have praised her ‘explosive chemistry’ with the LPO, and she’ll bring the same electricity to a Shakespearean overture by Brahms’s mentor Robert Schumann, and the teenage Mozart’s delightfully playful violin concerto. Hilary Hahn takes the part that Mozart wrote for himself; expect elegance as well as mischief from a true superstar among violinists.