The Girl of the Golden West (La fanciulla del West)

New production

Puccini’s opera of the American West, set during the California Gold Rush, was a great success at its premiere at the New York Met in December 1910, starring Caruso and Emmy Destinn, and conducted by Toscanini. Puccini’s peerless melodic gift and capacity for creating local colour was well-suited to this tale of a love triangle involving Dick Johnson, aka the bandit Ramerrez, Sheriff Jack Rance and Minnie, the Girl of the Golden West who runs the Polka saloon.

Based, like its predecessor Madama Butterfly, on a play by David Belasco, The Girl of the Golden West is a story of true love and second chances, set against the backdrop of the tough life of a gold-mining community on the American frontier. The opera boasts perhaps Puccini’s most innovative score, and surely his richest orchestrally.

In Opera North’s first production of the work in three decades, Alwyn Mellor returns to the Company as Minnie, one of Puccini’s most demanding soprano roles. Music Director Richard Farnes conducts, and Aletta Collins, whose productions of La voix humaine and Dido and Aeneas were among last season’s highlights, directs.

Lasts approximately 2 hours 30 mins
Sung in Italian with English titles

This production is supported by the Friends of Opera North

Download our complete opera performance diary for 2013-14 here.

From Paris with Love

From Paris with Love explores the music that helped create the iconic image of Paris as the City of Romance and the heart of all things bohemian.

In a theatrical evening, leading soloists together with the Orchestra of Opera North explore familiar favourites and neglected gems of the operatic repertoire by composers including Puccini, Leoncavallo and Charpentier. But that is only part of the story, for we also visit the more intimate cabarets of the Latin Quarter, infused with cigarette smoke and with the songs of love and heartbreak popularised by Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel.

Devised by David Parry and Annabel Arden; David Parry is well known for his reappraisal and championing of important neglected music as well as for his consistently fresh approach to established repertoire, in the opera house, on the concert platform, and through his numerous recordings for the Opera Rara and Chandos labels. Annabel Arden’s distinguished career encompasses opera, theatre and broadcasting as well as acting and devising new work. Her  productions for Opera North include La traviata and The Cunning Little Vixen.

Lasts approximately 2 hours 30 mins

Download our complete opera performance diary for 2013-14 here.

Götterdämmerung

Twilight of the Gods

Opera North’s four-year traversal of Der Ring des Nibelungen reaches the cycle’s overwhelming conclusion. The all-consuming love of Siegfried and Brünnhilde is broken in bitter betrayal; the machinations of Hagen, son of Alberich, seal Siegfried’s doom; and Brünnhilde’s self-immolation precipitates the end of the old world order and the beginning of a new era.

The musical and dramatic power of Götterdämmerung is awe-inspiring – from Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, to the mighty chorus of the Gibichung vassals, in which the Chorus of Opera North is joined by the internationally renowned Huddersfield Choral Society, to Siegfried’s Funeral March, and – above all – to Brünnhilde’s immolation and the work’s titanic orchestral climax.

Alwyn Mellor, widely praised for her radiant portrayal of Sieglinde in Opera North’s Die Walküre in 2012, sings the role of Brünnhilde in these performances. She is joined by a cast that also includes the American tenor Daniel Brenna as Siegfried and Susan Bickley as Waltraute. All are under the guidance of Opera North’s Music Director Richard Farnes, whose conducting of the previous instalments of this cycle has been universally acclaimed.

Lasts approximately 6 hours 15 mins

Please note: performance time includes two intervals, one of 30 mins, and one of 1 hour 15 mins.

Sung in German with English titles

A collaboration with The Sage Gateshead and Symphony Hall, Birmingham.

Financially supported by the Opera North Future Fund and The Ring Fellowship.

Download our complete opera performance diary for 2013-14 here.