What we're doing in Spring 2008

Our 2008 Spring season features three new productions based on Shakespeare plays: Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Roméo et Juliette.

Opening the Shakespeare Resounding season is Verdi’s Macbeth, directed by Tim Albery. It is Tim’s first Verdi opera for the Company since his intelligent and imaginative Don Carlos in 1993. Opera North’s music director, Richard Farnes, conducts.

Following on from the sell-out success of last season’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, Martin Duncan returns to direct a new production of Benjamin Britten’s gloriously melodic A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The final production of the Spring season is Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. Directed by John Fulljames, who has previously worked as an assistant director for the Company, and in 2005 directed the semi-staged production of Hansel and Gretel (2005). Roméo et Juliette is his first main stage work for the Company.

Building on the success of Eight Little Greats, designer Johan Engels returns to design the set for each production as a three-in-one-set. All three productions will have distinctly individual settings, whilst sharing the same foundation. Integrating sets and lighting designs in this way enables the Company to perform Saturday matinees and evening performances of different productions both in Leeds and on tour.

To accompany this Shakespeare themed season Opera North Projects presents a series of talks and discussion and there will be a Shakespeare related exhibition at 42 New Briggate Gallery.

The orchestra and chorus of Opera North will continue their vigorous concert performance schedule.

Get an Inside View:
Visit our opera minisites to find biographies of selected artists and interviews with directors and singers. You can also take a look behind-the-scenes at our permanent company by reading our orchestra player profiles and chorister profiles.