Orpheus Season ENO, Coliseum, starts 1st October
English National Opera takes a risk this autumn with four operas about Orpheus. The season begins with Gluck’s Orpheus and Euridice, below, a lyrical love story starring Alice Coote and Sarah Tynan, with choreography by Wayne McGregor. Offenbach’s naughty operetta Orpheus in the Underworld romps its way to Hell and back. But the third—Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Zinovieff’s The Mask of Orpheus—is the main event. Premiered by ENO in 1986, it is more meditation that conventional drama, the monumental score combining vast orchestral forces and electronics. The fourth work is Philip Glass’s Orphée.
English Touring OperaETO, Venues across the UK, 5th October to 15th November
English Touring Opera’s autumn tour offers a rare opportunity to see Kurt Weill’s epic “play with music” Silver Lake. The last work the composer wrote before he fled Germany, this passionate satirical drama (with playwright Georg Kaiser) was closed down by the Nazis for its pointed political commentary about those left behind—misfits, down-and-outs and moral idealists. A large orchestra creates a powerful engine for this musical drama, which amplifies Weill’s signature Weimar style into something more conventionally operatic.
50 Years in a Day Queen Elizabeth Hall, 6th October
Management agency HarrisonParrott celebrate their 50th birthday with the classical party to end all parties: 20 top artists, including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Barbara Hannigan, Paavo Järvi and Patricia Kopatchinskaja perform three concerts in a single day. Expect a whistle-stop musical education, from Bach to Birtwistle, featuring some of the best in the business.
English National Opera takes a risk this autumn with four operas about Orpheus. The season begins with Gluck’s Orpheus and Euridice, below, a lyrical love story starring Alice Coote and Sarah Tynan, with choreography by Wayne McGregor. Offenbach’s naughty operetta Orpheus in the Underworld romps its way to Hell and back. But the third—Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Zinovieff’s The Mask of Orpheus—is the main event. Premiered by ENO in 1986, it is more meditation that conventional drama, the monumental score combining vast orchestral forces and electronics. The fourth work is Philip Glass’s Orphée.
English Touring OperaETO, Venues across the UK, 5th October to 15th November
English Touring Opera’s autumn tour offers a rare opportunity to see Kurt Weill’s epic “play with music” Silver Lake. The last work the composer wrote before he fled Germany, this passionate satirical drama (with playwright Georg Kaiser) was closed down by the Nazis for its pointed political commentary about those left behind—misfits, down-and-outs and moral idealists. A large orchestra creates a powerful engine for this musical drama, which amplifies Weill’s signature Weimar style into something more conventionally operatic.
50 Years in a Day Queen Elizabeth Hall, 6th October
Management agency HarrisonParrott celebrate their 50th birthday with the classical party to end all parties: 20 top artists, including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Barbara Hannigan, Paavo Järvi and Patricia Kopatchinskaja perform three concerts in a single day. Expect a whistle-stop musical education, from Bach to Birtwistle, featuring some of the best in the business.
