Autumn 2022: UK Opera Guide
The upcoming opera season in the UK examines vital issues including the psychological impact of violence against women, the treatment of mental illness, and the eternal allure that powerful people can hold over a populace. You can discover what a podcast opera is, explore LGBT history, and witness a meeting of Indian and western baroque music. Here are our picks for Autumn 2022, spanning London, Suffolk, Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham and Salford Quays.
This events guide is brought to you by Homo Promos, which presents a poignant exploration of LGBT history through opera.
4-10 September, £5-£15
Marylebone; Soho; New Cross Gate; Stoke Newington
Homo Promos, Britain’s oldest LGBT company, moves into the world of opera with the premiere of a haunting true story. A shy and lonely teenage boy, a dreamer; an old man with a secret, once greatly loved, haunted by the past; a protective and suspicious mother, determined on the truth. When the three collide, can catastrophe be averted? This is a poignant exploration of LGBT history, and the experiences passed down the generations, for better or worse, told from the viewpoint of the boy Tadzio.
The opening performance is part of the Tête à Tête Opera Festival (15 August - 11 September) before it tours around London.
8-9 September, 7.45pm, £10-£35 (<30s half price)
Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk
Award-winning director Katie Mitchell tackles the psychological impact of violence against women in this new opera by Laura Bowler and Laura Lomas. The Blue Woman provokes a conversation about how operas deal with violence against women and our modern day understanding of this reality. It excavates the interior landscape of one woman, who has experienced a post-traumatic shattering of self as a consequence of being raped. It follows her as she searches a nameless city looking for what was taken. Wrapped around the central spine of the story are fragments of text, from other women of different ages, who have all been victims of sexual violence. Formally experimental, the structure of the opera mirrors the journey of fracture and reform that the Woman goes on.
9-10 September, 7.30pm, £12-£25 (discounts for <26s & students)
Arcola Theatre, Dalston
It is 1837 and Mary has been arrested for a breach of the peace. She is an outspoken woman and the authorities of Doncaster are confounded. They sentence Mary to a lifetime confinement in Wakefield Asylum. The Unravelling Fantasia of Miss H. is a poetic portrayal of a Victorian woman imprisoned by a society intent on control. Mary Frances Heaton’s tale is told through her own words, her defiant protests stitched into embroidered samplers and discovered in the asylum years later.
Mary’s struggle to hold on to her identity and reach the outside world speaks across the years, her outrage at a corrupt system urging us to ask ‘How much have things really changed?’. This contemporary opera is a new composition by soprano Red Gray and Sarah Nicolls with her inside-out piano.
Saturday 3 September, 3pm-4.15pm, £25
Printworks London, Canada Water
Music, dance, theatre, video, audio soundscapes and haute couture come together in this unique Proms project. Unusually, it’s hosted in the vast space of Printworks, a nightclub and events venue located in the former Harmsworth Quays printing plant, which printed newspapers including the Daily Mail and Evening Standard until 2012. There’ll be a world premiere by American composer Philip Glass, along with extracts from operas by Glass and from 18th-century operas by George Frideric Handel. Standing tickets only.
27 October - 1 November
Round Chapel, Hackney
Gothic Opera, a charity that specialises in rarely-seen operatic works that take inspiration from the uncanny atmosphere of the Gothic and supernatural, is back for Hallowe’en 2022. This year they’ve picked a double bill of operas by female composers: Le Loup-Garou (The Werewolf) by Louise Bertin and Le Dernier Sorcier (The Last Sorcerer) by Pauline Viardot. Both will be staged at the Round Chapel, a beautiful Grade II* listed chapel that hosts preloved vintage sales, gong baths and other eclectic events.
14 October - 19 November, 7pm, £15-£78 (£10 <30s; £20 for people new to opera through the Try it ON scheme)
Leeds Grand Theatre; Theatre Royal, Newcastle; Theatre Royal, Nottingham; The Lowry, Salford Quays
This adventurous new opera production of the ancient tragedy is told through a meeting of the worlds of Indian and western baroque music. The bowed strings of the violin and the tar shehnai, the hammered strings of the santoor, the plucked strings of the harpsichord and sitar and the rhythms of the tabla shape a unique and beautiful musical encounter between East and West. Can Orpheus conquer fate, or will his heart be broken for a second time?
Sunday 4 September, 2pm-3.30pm, free (pay as you feel)
The Holbeck, Leeds
A bold examination of the eternal allure that powerful people can hold over a populace, The Dictator is a timely and stark warning to us all. This short opera by Ernst Krenek was premiered in 1928 with its powerful subject cloaked in a richa, melodic and often beautiful score. Following the performance at Britain’s oldest social club will be a panel discussion on the opera’s historical context, and representations of war and dictators on stage. This opera is part of Leeds Opera Festival from 19 August to 8 September, which also includes an arts and climate symposium.
Any time
Online, free
Veritable Michael tells the true story of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper — two Victorian poets who lived, loved and wrote under the pseudonym, Michael Field. This podcast opera by Shadow Opera combines the journals, poetry and letters of Katherine and Edith with an original score by Tom Floyd, exploring the fantastical, witty and queer world of Michael Field. It’s available to listen to online across six episodes.
Hannah Fiddy is a creative entrepreneur, developing new audiences for classical music. She has created and promoted numerous concerts outside of traditional spaces, including warehouses, pubs, clubs, museums, hospitals, prisons and even in Primark. Hannah is also an interviewer, writer and guest lecturer, and runs the Avon Chamber Choir in Bristol. In a past life she founded London Flashmob, producing quirky events from wedding proposals to cultural pranks for up to 1,000 people.
Follow Hannah on Twitter @Hannah_Fiddy.