Opera North

The great theater in Leeds, home of Opera North

The Opera North is an English opera orchestra in Leeds . Its venue is the local Grand Theater . As an opera orchestra, it also covers the cities of Nottingham , Salford , Newcastle upon Tyne and other municipalities in Northern England.

history

Opera North was founded in 1977 as a branch of the English National Opera in order to establish a high quality opera orchestra in the north of England. It operated under the name of English National Opera until 1981 , when it was officially renamed Opera North as an independent orchestra . The first music director and founder was the conductor David Lloyd-Jones , who held this position until 1990. The orchestra gave its first performance on October 15, 1978 with the opera Samson et Dalila by Saint-Saëns .

Paul Daniel replaced Lloyd-Jones as music director in 1990 and held this position until 1997. The orchestra then concentrated on the world premieres of established operas in the north of England, but also in the wider area. After that, Elgar Howarth took turns as music directors until 1999 (temporarily) and Steven Sloane until 2004. The orchestra found itself in calmer waters when Richard Farnes took over the lead in 2004. Under his direction, the orchestra staged the entire opera cycle of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen over a period of four years . Farnes extended his contract, which ran until 2015, for a further year until 2016. In October 2015, the orchestra signed Aleksandar Marković as guest conductor, and in February 2016 it was announced that Marković would succeed Farnes on a contract for an initial two years. The Scottish conductor Garry Walker has been the orchestra's designated conductor since 2019 .

Musical range of the orchestra

repertoire

In addition to the normal repertoire of an opera orchestra, he is also responsible for productions that are less common in Great Britain. A selection of the potential that the orchestra has:

Les mamelles de Tirésias ( Poulenc ) (1978) The Mines of Sulfur ( Richard Rodney Bennett ) (1980) A Village Romeo and Juliet ( Delius ) (1980) Prince Igor ( Alexander Porfirjewitsch Borodin ) (1982) Beatrice and Benedict ( Berlioz ) (1983) Johnny Strikes Up ( Krenek ) (1984, British première) Intermezzo ( Richard Strauss ) (1986) Daphne (Strauss) (1987, British première) La finta giardiniera ( Mozart ) (1989) Jérusalem ( Giuseppe Verdi ) (1990, British première) Ariane et Barbe-Bleue ( Dukas ) (1990) Masquerade ( Carl Nielsen ) (1990, British professional première) King Priam ( Michael Tippett ) (1991) L'étoile ( Emmanuel Chabrier ) (1991) The Jewel Box (Mozart, arranged by Paul Griffiths ) (1991) The Thieving Magpie ( Rossini ) (1992) Iolanta ( Tchaikovsky ) (1992) The Duenna ( Roberto Gerhard ) (1992, British première) The distant sound ( Schreker ) (1992, British première) La Gioconda ( Ponchielli ) (1993)

Gloriana ( Benjamin Britten ) (1993) Il re pastore (Mozart) (1993) The Secret Marriage ( Domenico Cimarosa ) (1993) Oberto conte di San Bonifacio (Verdi) (1994, British stage première) The Reluctant King (Chabrier) (1994, British stage première) Troilus and Cressida ( William Walton ) (1995) Hamlet ( Ambroise Thomas ) (1995) Medea ( Luigi Cherubini ) (1996) Julietta ( Bohuslav Martinů ) (1997) Giovanna d'Arco (Verdi) (1998) Radamisto ( Handel ) (2000) Genoveva ( Schumann ) (2000) Moscow, Cheryomushki ( Shostakovich ) (2001) Francesca da Rimini ( Rachmaninov ) (2004) L'occasione fa il ladro (Rossini) (2004, British stage première) Djamileh ( Bizet ) (2004) La vida breve ( Manuel de Falla ) (2004) La voix humaine (Poulenc) (2006) Croesus ( Reinhard Keizer ) (2007, British première) The Excursions of Mr Broucek ( Janáček ) (2009)

In 2011 the orchestra brought the opera The Portrait of Mieczysław Weinberg to the program and started the four-year cycle of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen with Rheingold in Leeds. Also 2011 saw the premiere of the opera Beached by the composer Harvey Brough with a libretto by Lee Hall .

World premieres

Opera North was responsible for the world premieres of the operas Rebecca by Wilfred Josephs (1983), Caritas by Robert Saxton (1991), Baa, Baa, Black Sheep by Michael Berkeley (1993), Playing Away by Benedict Mason (1994), The Nightingale's to Blame by Simon Holt (1998), Jonathan Doves The Adventures of Pinocchio (2007), Swanhunter (2009), Skin Deep by David Sawer and Armando Iannucci (2009). Also in July 2009, the ensemble brought to the Manchester International Festival , the first of Rufus Wainwright composed opera prima donna for Aufführung-

Musicals

Also musical part of the repertoire of the orchestra. For example, the first play performed by Jerome Kern's Show Boat in 1989 (in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company ). It then took another seven years until another musical by Kurt Weill's Love Life with a text by Alan Jay Lerner was recorded by the orchestra in 1996 . This was followed in 1999 by the musicals of Gershwins Of Thee I Sing and Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd . 2006 again by Kurt Weill One Touch of Venus , The Seven Deadly Sins and The Horse Trading . This was followed again in 2009 by Gershwin with Let 'Em Eat Cake , the sequel of Of Thee I Sing and in 2012 Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel .

Electronic music

Opera North also worked closely with electronica composer Mira Calix for Dead Wedding for the Manchester International Festival 2007, as well as Oninbus and Chorus in 2008 and 2009 for the opening show of the United Visual Artists (UVA) in the Howard Assembly Rooms .

Awards

• Winner of the 2007 TMA Theater Award for Excellence for the opera Peter Grimes , directed by Phyllida Lloyd , and 2004
• Winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Opera & Music Theaters 2007 (for Peter Grimes ) and 2005
• Winner of the South Bank Show Award for Opera 2007 (for Peter Grimes ) and 2005 (for its Eight Little Greats season of one-act operas)
• Winner of the 2004 Manchester Evening News Theater Awards for Opera
• Winner of the Audiences Yorkshire Award for Best Marketing and Audience Development 2004

Music directors

• David Lloyd-Jones (1978–1990)
• Paul Daniel (1990-1997)
• Steven Sloane (1999-2002)
• Richard Farnes (2004-2016)
• Aleksandar Markovic (2016–)

Web links

• Opera North homepage

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tim Ashley: Das Rheingold - review . In: The Guardian , June 21, 2011. Retrieved February 27, 2016. 
2. ^ Alfred Hickling: Opera North tackles Wagner's Ring Cycle - minus the financial dramas . In: The Guardian , June 12, 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2016. 
3. ↑ Tim Ashley: The Valkyrie - review . In: The Guardian , June 17, 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2016. 
4. ↑ Tim Ashley: Siegfried - review . In: The Guardian , June 18, 2013. Retrieved February 27, 2016. 
5. ^ Alfred Hickling: Götterdämmerung review - belt-and-braces Wagner . In: The Guardian , June 15, 2014. Retrieved February 27, 2016. 
6. ^ Imogen Tilden: Opera North announce first Poppea and departure of music director Farnes . In: The Guardian , April 30, 2014. Retrieved February 27, 2016. 
7. ^ Martin Dreyer: Review: Opera North in Jenůfa; Grand Theater, Leeds . In: The Yorkshire Press , October 23, 2015. Retrieved February 27, 2016. 
8. ^ Opera North's new Music Director: Aleksandar Marković , Opera North. February 24, 2016. Retrieved February 27, 2016. 
9. ↑ Garry Walker Named Music Director of Opera North , Kirshbaum Associates Inc., July 1, 2019, accessed October 8, 2019
10. ↑ Higgins, Charlotte: From pop to opera: petrified Rufus Wainwright embraces 'the dark religion' . The Guardian . October 9, 2008. Retrieved February 22, 2009.
11. ↑ Dead Wedding. (No longer available online.) Manchester International Festival, archived from the original on January 18, 2017 ; accessed on October 1, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ^ Howard Assembly Rooms. Opera North, accessed October 1, 2017 . 
13. ↑ TMA press release ( Memento of the original dated December 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
14. ^ RPS Music Awards site
15. ↑ Metro report
16. ↑ Arts Council press release ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.