Highlights
All Performances
Little Singers
Opera North Early Years Programme
Suitable for 0 - 4 years
Sing songs, explore instruments, play games and have fun with music in our weekly sessions. Sessions aim to support the development and well-being of children under the age of 4 and their families through high-quality musical experiences and activities.
Led by a professional musician, all workshops introduce live singing and music-making in a fun and creative environment suitable for all babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers with their grown-ups.
We also run Little Singers sessions (for 0-4s) in other areas of Leeds and Yorkshire:
| Morley Town Hall | Mondays at 11.15am |
15 Jan – 26 Mar (ex 12 Feb) 16 April – 9 July (ex 28 May) |
£5 per child, pay on door |
| Cast, Doncaster | Wednesdays 10am |
10 Jan – 28 March (ex 14 Feb) |
£3.50 per child, book via Cast |
| Colton Primary School | Thursdays at 10am |
11 Jan – 29 Mar (ex 15 Feb) 19 April – 12 July (ex 31 May) |
£4 per child, pay on door |
| ERT, Beverley | Thursdays 10.30am |
Starting Thurs 11 Jan – Thurs 29 Mar (ex 15 Feb) 12 April – 12 July (ex 31 May)
|
£5 per child, book via ERT |
For more information, contact Alex Bradshaw on alex.bradshaw@operanorth.co.uk
I love bringing my child; the space is beautiful and has a lovely atmosphere. It is brilliant that we have the chance to sing with a professional vocal artist. Coming to the sessions have given me more confidence to sing with my child at home.
— Little Singers parent
Follow our Little Singers playlist:
Bring-Along-A-Baby Choir
Suitable for adults with babies and young children
This is a wonderful opportunity for parents and carers to come along and enjoy all the fun of singing in a group, in a warm and friendly environment.
No singing experience (or talent!) is necessary, just a desire to join in and have a go.
Each individual session costs £6, or book all 8 sessions for the discounted rate of £40.
Salome
Richard Strauss' visceral and shocking masterpiece
Concert performance
Based on Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, this is the savage and bloody tale of King Herod’s step-daughter. When Herod’s prisoner Jokanaan (John the Baptist) rebuffs her advances, Salome vows she will kiss him – no matter the consequences.
Opera North returns to the concert hall, following acclaimed concert stagings of the Ring cycle and Turandot, to present a concert performance of Salome, a piece which caused outrage when it was first performed. From the seductive ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ to the explosive vocal parts, the violent sensuality of the score illustrates every moment of the story with unflinching vividness. This is opera at its most extreme, concentrated into 100 intense and exhilarating minutes.
Running Time
Approximately 1 hour 40 minutes (with no interval)
Language
Sung in German with English titles
Trailer
The Music
Ambrose Akinmusire
With support
American jazz trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire’s Blue Note debut When The Heart Emerges Glistening was released in 2011 to rave reviews and comparisons to Miles Davis.
The Los Angeles Times praised his 'chameleonic tone that can sigh, flutter or soar,' adding that 'Akinmusire sounds less like a rising star than one that was already at great heights and just waiting to be discovered.' Seven years on, his music is enriched by a compositional element and an opulent sound palette. His virtuoso trumpet is joined by his longtime quartet in a set filled with light and shade, lyricism and swing.
Keepy Uppy
From renowned children’s theatre company tutti frutti, Keepy Uppy tells an extraordinary tale of love, devotion, family and the power of team spirit, set in the world of football.
By Writers’ Guild award-winner Evan Placey, Keepy Uppy is a play for the 2018 World Cup year, for football fans, children and families. Join tutti frutti as they celebrate the joy of the beautiful game and ignite children’s imagination with visual and physical storytelling, live music and fab footie moves.
For children aged 3 - 7 and their families. One hour running time.
Those looking for a magical and thought-provoking early experience of the wonder and power of theatre should treat themselves to tutti frutti.
- British Theatre Guide
Anna & Elizabeth
With support — Benjamin Lazar Davis
Anna & Elizabeth are two truly inspiring artists with a deep and shared love of the musical traditions of America’s Appalachia region.
Their music combines old stories of love, loss and intrigue with new arrangements that utilise the spartan simplicity of their voices and the sounds of acoustic instruments, synths, woodwinds and field recordings.
Their captivating performances integrate visual art, movement and experiment film with breath-taking harmonies, including the use of ‘crankies’ – Cloth and cut paper scrolls depicting scenes from their ballads, unfurled to musical accompaniment.
The sound is pure Appalachian mountain music, so completely in tune with its roots that, were it not for the clarity, you’d think you were listening to a long-lost, century-old recording
Folkradio.co.uk
Orchestra of Opera North: The Damnation of Faust
Orchestra of Opera North
Leeds Festival Chorus
Leeds Philharmonic Chorus
Opera North Children's Chorus
Opera North Young Voices
Simon Wright - conductor
Rachel Kelly - mezzo soprano
David Butt Philip - tenor
David Soar - baritone
Ashley Riches - bass
| Berlioz | The Damnation of Faust |
This marvellous book fascinated me from the first. I could not put it down. I read it incessantly, at meals, in the theatre, in the street!
— Berlioz on Goethe's Faust: Part One
Pre-concert talk at 6.45pm
George Kennaway discussing the evening's works
Entry is free to ticket-holders, but space is limited so please arrive early to avoid disapointment.
Salomé (1923) with live score
Circuit des Yeux’s Haley Fohr performs a newly commissioned, original soundtrack to the startlingly seductive 1923 silent movie, Salomé.
Circuit des Yeux’s sound combines fingerpicked guitar, avant-garde electronics, minimalism and song with Fohr’s otherworldly voice, which has drawn comparisons with Nina Simone, Nico and even Scott Walker.
Haley Fohr and her band perform a soundtrack to Salomé, the scandalous 1923 film based on the story of Herod’s stepdaughter.
Conceived, produced, and starring the stupendous Russian actress Alla Nazimova, Salomé was a resounding flop on release, with its story and rumours of debauched parties at Nazimova’s mansion on Sunset Boulevard causing it to be shunned by the major studios.
In the years since, its weirdly beautiful atmosphere and aesthetic – combining Art Nouveau, modernism and the glamour of Hollywood’s Golden Age – have led to its growing recognition as an exotic gem, and a cornerstone of camp.
Commissioned by Opera North Projects for Leeds International Festival.
Dir. Charles Bryant; 1923; 75 mins; USA
ON After Hours: Songs and Sonnets
14 May - 23 Jul 2018
Leeds
Howard Assembly Room
ON After Hours: Songs and Sonnets
Brush up your Shakespeare this spring with the ON After Hours Chorus as they explore some varied Shakespearean repertoire in celebration of the return to the stage of Kiss Me, Kate, Cole Porter’s witty retelling of The Taming of the Shrew.
Rehearsals will be led by friendly professional artists who will help you to learn operatic and choral pieces inspired by the Bard’s works, in preparation for a relaxed performance in front of family and friends on Monday 23 July.
To take part, you will need some experience of singing and be able to follow a music score.
Leeds Piano Festival: Alessio Bax
Part of Leeds Piano Festival 2018
For this programme, Alessio Bax plays pieces including Bach’s arrangement of Marcello’s Oboe Concerto, Rachmaninov’s Variations on a theme of Corelli and Liszt’s Dante Sonata.
Pianist Alessio Bax’s lyricism, insight and dazzling facility create ‘a ravishing listening experience’, with playing that ‘quivers with an almost hypnotic intensity’ (Gramophone), referred to by Dallas Morning News as ‘an out-of-body experience’.
First Prize winner at the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions and a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, he has appeared as soloist with more than 100 orchestras, including the London and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, Dallas and Houston Symphonies, NHK Symphony in Japan, St. Petersburg Philharmonic with Yuri Temirkanov, and the City of Birmingham Symphony with Sir Simon Rattle.
*Festival Pass: Book all four Leeds Piano Festival recitals and save £14. Festival Pass includes free ticket to Alessio Bax's Masterclass (available from Box Office)
| Alessandro Marcello | Oboe Concerto in D minor (arr. J.S. Bach) |
| Rachmaninov | Variations on a Theme of Corelli |
| Dallapiccola | Quaderno musicale di Annalibera |
| Liszt | St. François d'Assise: La Prédication aux oiseaux |
| Liszt | Après une Lecture de Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata (Dante Sonata) |
Leeds Piano Festival: Piano Masterclass with Alessio Bax
15 May 2018
Leeds
Howard Assembly Room
Leeds Piano Festival: Piano Masterclass with Alessio Bax
Following the opening recital of the Leeds Piano Festival Alessio Bax returns to the Howard Assembly Room to host a Masterclass with the Lang Lang International Music Foundation Young Scholars.
Hailed by International Piano as "a pianist of refreshing depth", and winner of the 2000 Leeds International Piano Competition, Alessio will share his expertise and insight with three exceptional young pianists ahead of their own recital on 19 May.
*Book all four Leeds Piano Festival recitals and attend the masterclass for free (available from Box Office only)
Battleship Potemkin
With live score
It's 1905 and the crew of the Potemkin are electrified by news of a revolution; the lower decks strive to replicate it in a mutiny against their brutal officers.
As word of their revolt spreads, the people of nearby Odessa gather to show their support for the crew. The ensuing chaos has become one of cinema’s most iconic sequences, as peaceful protesters are gunned down on the steps leading into the city. Technically virtuosic, visually epic and intense, Battleship Potemkin is given a propulsive new score to match by Norwegian composer and electronic musician Jan Bang and Matt Calvert from Three Trapped Tigers.
Potemkin is a vital viewing experience that transcends its landmark / milestone status.
—The Guardian