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.
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.
Kiss Me, Kate
Cole Porter’s dazzling comedy of musical mischief will leave you feeling positively ‘WUNDERBAR’!
On the opening night of a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew in 1940s Baltimore, the tempestuous love lives of actor-manager Fred Graham and his leading lady (and ex-wife) Lilli Vanessi are set to collide.
Throw in Fred’s current paramour Lois Lane and her gambler boyfriend Bill – plus a couple of gun-toting gangsters who somehow get caught up in the show – and the stage is set for a funny and farcical battle of the sexes!
Cole Porter’s riotously inventive homage to the sparkling wit of Shakespeare, Kiss Me, Kate is an irresistible celebration of the joy and madness of working in theatre. With show-stopping songs including 'BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE,’ 'ALWAYS TRUE TO YOU IN MY FASHION' and 'SO IN LOVE,' performed by an all-singing, all-dancing cast of international singers and West End stars, our spectacular production is simply ‘TOO DARN HOT’ to miss out on!’
Follow Kiss Me, Kate on social media:
Kiss Me, Kate is a co-production with Welsh National Opera
Music and lyrics by Cole Porter
Book by Bella and Samuel Spewack
Critical Edition by David Charles Abell and Seann Alderking
Running Time
Approximately 2 hours 45 minutes
Language
Sung in English
Trailer
BSL Introduction
The Music
Orchestra of Opera North: Vaughan Williams, Salieri, Beethoven
The Orchestra of Opera North's first outing at Doncaster's CAST with a sparkling summer programme.
Andrew Long - Violin
Kevin Gowland - Flute
Richard Hewitt - Oboe
Howard Shelley - Conductor
Ranked at no. 1 on the Classic FM Hall of Fame, we’re delighted to begin the concert with a popular classic; Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. This evocative score paints the scenic landscape of the rolling British countryside and is simply breath-taking when heard live.
Described by The Guardian as ‘a radical work, … spine-tingling and life-enhancingly joyful’, Beethoven’s spell-binding Symphony No. 6 ‘Pastoral’ follows, before the concert concludes with Salieri’s delightful Flute and Oboe Concerto in C major, a playful piece that dances throughout the sections and is sure to enchant.
| Vaughan Williams | The Lark Asceneding |
| Salieri | Flute and Oboe Conceto in c Major |
| Beethoven | Symphony No.6 'Pastoral |
…the orchestral playing is first-class… something very special indeed
— **** Daily Telegraph on Die Walküre
Anda Union
Hailing from different ethnic nomadic cultures, Anda Union unite tribal and music traditions from all over Inner Mongolia in their propulsive, forward looking Mongolian folk music.
Playing traditional instruments, including the morin huur horsehead fiddle, topshur lute and moadin chor flute, their urgent yet intimate vocal style combines harmony and solo singing with carefully controlled bursts of growling and eerie throat singing.
Their songs are about history, horses and Genghis Khan combined with those keenly lamenting the threats climate change and modernity pose to their grasslands habitat and ancient Mongolian culture.
Stirring, sophisticated Mongolian folk
The Guardian
Institute of Psychoanalysis: Northern Summer School
15 Jun - 16 Jun 2018
Leeds
Howard Assembly Room
Institute of Psychoanalysis: Northern Summer School
The Institute of Psychoanalysis and Opera North present an introduction to key concepts in psychoanalysis in a two-day Summer School.
This exciting collaboration will bring psychoanalytic ideas to life by exploring the shared territories between psychoanalysis, opera and other performing arts, with their shared aim of telling stories with emotional intensity and meaning that have the potential to transform.
This is a unique opportunity to take part in a dialogue between performers, directors and psychoanalysts to explore the synergy between the two disciplines.
Learn about psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic interpretation and what becoming a psychoanalyst involves.
Explore performance as interpretation, the complexities of performing violence and psychoanalysis and film.
The Northern Summer School is open to everyone, including current undergraduate and postgraduate students from any discipline or background.
Visit the Institute of Psychoanalysis website for the full programme and further information.
Her
Joaquin Phoenix stars in Spike Jonze's soulful sci-fi drama about a lonely writer who falls in love with his computer's highly advanced operating system, Samantha (Scarlett Johansson).
Please note that the date of this event has changed to Friday 15th June.
‘She’ is a bright, female voice, and is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into a love affair. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Spike Jonze explores the evolving nature – and the risks – of intimacy in the modern world.
Speaking before the film is Andrea Sabbadini, Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and director of the European Psychoanalytic Film Festival. Afterwards, there will be the chance to discuss the film together.
Presented as part of the Institute of Psychoanalysis Summer School
Dir Spike Jonze, USA 2014, 126mins + (duration of talk). Cert 15.
Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill
Step into the glamorous world of cabaret as we celebrate one of the greatest, most influential musical theatre composers of the 20th Century.
A co-production with West Yorkshire Playhouse in association with City Varieties Music Hall
Join us on an exhilarating tour of highlights from the Kurt Weill songbook, from the smoky cafés of 1920s Berlin to the Broadway stages of the 1940s.
Weill’s show-stopping hits include standards such as ‘Mack the Knife’ and ‘September Song’ and a host of other numbers made famous by artists ranging from Sinatra to Bowie, from Streisand to Simone.
Directed by one of the most inspirational figures in British theatre, Giles Havergal, whose work for Opera North includes popular hits The Barber of Seville and The Merry Widow, this unique show features a fabulous ensemble of singers drawn from the award-winning Chorus of Opera North, stars of Opera North’s acclaimed productions of Carousel and Into the Woods. Together they’ll bring you a cabaret of delights in the atmospheric surroundings of Leeds’ beautiful Victorian music hall, the City Varieties.
Music by Kurt Weill
Lyrics by Maxwell Anderson / Bertolt Brecht / Michael Feingold / Paul Green / Alan Jay Lerner / George Tabori / Marc Blitzstein / Jacques Deval / Ira Gershwin / Langston Hughes / Ogden Nash / Arnold Weinstein
Text and Format by Gene Lerner
Musical arrangements by Newton Wayland
Originally directed by Donald Saddler
Originally produced by Gene Lerner and Hank Kaufman
Performed by arrangement with Music Theatre International (Europe) Limited
Opera North Children’s Chorus Summer Sing
The Opera North Children’s Chorus present a programme of some of the finest songs for children’s voices ever written.
You will enjoy music by Richard Rodney Bennett and Benjamin Britten, together with works commissioned by Opera North setting words by the visionary poet John Clare.
Children will be joined by a small group of amazing players from the Orchestra of Opera North. A programme of great music which will appeal to adults and children alike.
The Path to Heaven
An opera by Adam Gorb and Ben Kaye
A powerful tale of extremism, expedience and deceit, The Path to Heaven exposes the disintegration of the loves, lives and hopes of a family struggling to survive during the Holocaust.
Sara, Hanna, Dieter, Magda and Hans return home from a party to find that having ‘danced too long in the moonlight’, evil stalks them from the darkness.
The discovery that their adoptive parents have disappeared triggers a descent into a nightmare from which none will escape unchanged. A meticulously-researched series of individual real stories has been woven into a thrilling new opera for the 21st Century.
Performed by musicians from Psappha and The Royal Northern College of Music.
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou
The legendary orchestra from Benin celebrates 50 years together. Undisputed kings of voodoo music, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo blends traditional Beninese music, American soul and funk, Nigerian Afrobeat, Congolese rumba, French pop and Afro-Cuban rhythms.
The oldest active African orchestra, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo are also one of the continent’s most prolific collectives, releasing hundreds of EPs and dozens of albums throughout the 60s and 70s.
Their magnificent live show and unparalleled musical output shows them truly worthy of their full name: Le Tout Puissant Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou (The All Powerful Polyrhythmic Orchestra of Cotonou).