The Royal Ballet and Royal Opera’s programme for 2018/19 include world premieres, major new productions and classic revivals.
Details of the Royal Opera House’s 2018/19 Season have been announced.
The Royal Opera’s Season includes five new productions, classic revivals and operas that span the entire breadth of the repertory, opening with Wagner’s Ring cycle, conducted by Music Director Antonio Pappano, in a final outing for Keith Warner’s acclaimed production.
The Season also includes co-productions of Christof Loy’s production of Verdi‘s La forza del destino and Stefan Herheim’s staging of Tchaikovsky‘s The Queen of Spades. Richard Jones continues our Janáček cycle, staging Katya Kabanova, and Deborah Warner returns to the Royal Opera House with an acclaimed new production of Billy Budd, opening a series of operas by one of the UK’s greatest composers, Benjamin Britten.
Royal Opera House 2018/19 Season: full details
The Royal Opera is also planning a cycle of works for families over the next few Seasons, beginning this Christmas when director/designer Antony McDonald creates a production of Humperdinck‘s Hansel and Gretel for all ages.
As well as a commitment to a broad range of new productions, this Season nods to The Royal Opera’s heritage, with a performance of Handel‘s oratorio Solomon, which was originally premiered at Covent Garden in 1749.
Bizet‘s Carmen directed by Barrie Kosky, Mozart‘s Così fan tutte directed by Jan Philipp Gloger, Mussorgsky‘s Boris Godunov directed by Richard Jones, and Giordano‘s Andrea Chénier, directed by David McVicar will return for their first revivals. La traviata, The Marriage of Figaro, and Tosca also return to the Royal Opera House.
Royal Opera House 2018/19 Season: full details
The Royal Ballet’s Season celebrates the rich ballet repertory spanning three centuries of heritage, contemporary and new works, with five world premieres including a new one-act ballet by Alastair Marriott to a commissioned score by Dario Marianelli, with set design by Es Devlin.
Three further new one-act ballets will be performed this Season: a new work by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and a new work by Aletta Collins set to a commissioned score by David Sawer as part of the Linbury Theatre season. The Royal Ballet School will also perform a new one-act ballet, choreographed by Liam Scarlett.
The Royal Ballet will be going on tour to Los Angeles to perform the first part of a new full-length work by Wayne McGregor, with a commissioned score by Thomas Adès and designs by Tacita Dean. The work is presented as part of a large-scale collaboration, spanning two years, in partnership with the LA Phil, Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center, The Royal Ballet and Company Wayne McGregor.
The Season will feature a number of revivals from the 19th century including: La Bayadère, Don Quixote, The Nutcracker and the 20th century, including: The Firebird, Fredrick Ashton‘s Les Patineurs, The Two Pigeons, A Month in the Country, Kenneth MacMillan‘s Winter Dreams, Mayerling, and Romeo and Juliet, Jerome Robbins‘s The Concert and George Balanchine‘s Symphony in C.
Modern day revivals in the 2018/19 Season include Asphodel Meadows and Frankenstein by Liam Scarlett, Within the Golden Hour by Christopher Wheeldon, with new design by Jasper Conran, Infra by Wayne McGregor, and Flight Pattern by Crystal Pite.
The Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season
The Royal Opera House’s Live Cinema Season 2018/19 will showcase 11 productions live from Covent Garden:
- Ballet: Mayerling (MacMillan) – 15 October 2018
- Opera: Die Walküre (Wagner) – 28 October 2018
- Ballet: La Bayadère (Petipa) – 13 November 2018
- Ballet: The Nutcracker (Wright) – 3 December 2018
- Opera: The Queen of Spades (Tchaikovsky) – 22 January 2019
- Opera: La traviata (Verdi) – 30 January 2019
- Ballet: Don Quixote (Acosta/Petipa) – 19 February 2019
- Opera: La forza del destino (Verdi) – 2 April 2019
- Opera: Faust (Gounod) – 30 April 2019
- Ballet: Flight Pattern (Pite) / Within the Golden Hour (Wheeldon) / New work (Cherkaoui) – 16 May 2019
- Ballet: Romeo and Juliet (MacMillan) – 11 June 2019
Tickets for the 2018/19 Cinema Season go on sale on Tuesday 4 April 2018 in the UK and on Tuesday 12 June 2018 for international territories.