Opera North Projects

Creating exciting performances

The work of Opera North Projects crosses conventional boundaries, bringing classical and contemporary arts together in an eclectic year-round programme of performance, visual arts commissions, literary events and artistic development. Projects take apart the elements of opera: words, music, visual arts and theatre, and put them back together in new ways.

Opera North Projects produces small-scale touring shows, site specific performance and commissions, together with a rolling programme of artistic residencies. ‘Home’ is the beautifully restored Howard Assembly Room in Leeds, a captivating and flexible performance space whose public programme is curated by the Projects Department.

Work often has an emphasis on collaboration, with recent partners including The Royal Shakespeare Company, the Manchester International Festival, Kneehigh Theatre, The Opera Group and The Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Get in touch

Online: Click here to contact us
Phone: +44 (0)113 243 9999
projects@operanorth.co.uk
Address: Opera North Grand Theatre,
46 New Briggate, Leeds, LS1 6NU

Current Projects

  • Crow's Bones (2012 - )

    By Martin Green Murdered lovers and kisses that kill; this specially curated evening of ghostly songs will send shivers down your spine. Led by Lau accordionist Mart...

  • The Girl I Left Behind Me (2011 - )

    Devised by Jessica Walker and Neil Bartlett The Girl I Left Behind Me is a supremely well-sung and coolly contemporary look at one of the most intriguing questi...

Online Projects

  • Mein Lieber Schwan

    The puppetmaker sits alone in a room and slowly places the needle onto a record. The music, and the story, begin... To accompany the first year of Opera North's ...

  • The Lullaby Project

    Soothing, bitter or even bawdy, there's much more to the lullaby than sending a child to sleep. This online collection of lullabies old and new, is a tribute to the wonde...

Past Projects

  • Chorus (2009)

    To celebrate the opening of the Howard Assembly Room in 2009, Opera North commissioned United Visual Artists to create a site specific response to the newly restored per...

  • Four Seasons (2011 - 13)

    Four Seasons is a series of candlelit concerts to celebrate each season in words and music in the chapel at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Curated by cellist Matt Sharp, ...

  • It Takes Two (2012)

    A night at the opera unlike any other with some of the greatest double acts of the operatic world. At this free summer event meet lovers and heartless villains, kings and cou...

  • Kindertotenlieder (2005 - 2011)

    A moving image installation by Mariele Neudecker and Picture This. Five specially created rooms, one for each of Mahler’s exquisite and heartbreaking songs of ...

  • Life Cycle (2011)

    By Emily Hall and Toby Litt.  Life Cycle is a moving, occasionally shocking and ultimately uplifting set of songs about becoming a mother, written by composer E...

  • Mercy and Grand (2011 - )

    In the song by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan the words ‘Mercy and Grand’ refer to a place, a corner where two roads meet on the edge of a town. In our project, w...

  • O Let Me Weep: Titania’s Dream (2011)

    Light Night Leeds O Let Me Weep uses elements of live performance, projection and sound recording to create a walk-through installation. Whether you stay for five min...

  • Pandora's Box (2012 - )

    Silent film with a new live score Composed and performed by Jóhann Jóhannsson and Hildur Gudnadóttir.. ‘at that time a dangerously shocking...

  • Sit Bach and Enjoy (2010)

    Light Night Leeds, October 2010  A spotlight comes on; a single performer is illuminated, lifts the bow, and begins to play. What do you do? Not normally a quest...

  • The Devil's Jukebox (2012)

    Created for Light Night Leeds 2012, curated by Matthew Sharp. Step into the devil’s jukebox, where five hours of non-stop live music plays all around you, and we pr...

  • The Gambler (2011)

      Look into the abyss of ultimate risk during an evening of music and obsession. The Howard Assembly Room becomes the casino at Roulettenberg for an unforgettable ev...

  • The Gypsy Bible (2010)

    By Joe Townsend and Alasdair Middleton. Directed by Catherine Alexander Making a violin isn’t easy: it takes 400 years of love, murder and the devil’s w...

  • The Little Match Girl Passion (2012)

    Vocal ensemble I Fagiolini perform one of the greatest Bach motets alongside Pulitzer prize-winning contemporary piece ‘The Little Match Girl Passion’ by Gra...

  • Who is This That Comes? (2011)

    A Ghost Story for Christmas Who Is This That Comes? is a performance piece commissioned by Opera North Projects for the Howard Assembly Room. Combining music, drama ...

  • Winterreise (2003 - )

    Winterreise is a performance of Schubert’s harshly beautiful song cycle accompanied by German artist Mariele Neudecker’s series of 24 short films.  The c...