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Season Previews from around the world
Death of Classical and The Green-Wood Cemetery have announced season three of their acclaimed concert series, The Angel’s Share. The series will offer seven in-person events in the Cemetery and Catacombs, and seven filmed programs broadcast on The WNET Group’s ALL ARTS TV channel and streaming on allarts.org and the ALL ARTS app.
THREE CHOIRS FESTIVAL 2021
It was a bitter disappointment when the Covid pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 Three Choirs Festival in Worcester; this was the first time in its 300-year history that the Festival had been cancelled other than during war time. Since then, the outlook for live music-making in the UK has been very uncertain, but the highly successful vaccination programme and a very welcome significant reduction in case numbers has brought optimism and the Three Choirs has announced a programme for the 2021 Festival. The city of Worcester has again been given the opportunity to act as host and the Festival will run from 24 July to 1 August.
Edinburgh International Festival to take place 7 – 29 August 2021
Live performances to be staged in bespoke outdoor pavilions
in iconic locations across Scotland’s capital, including Edinburgh Park
and the University of Edinburgh’s Old College Quad
Visit eif.co.uk for further information about the 2021 Edinburgh International Festival
Royal Opera House announces packed schedule for Spring and Summer
The Royal Opera House is delighted to announce more details of its packed schedule of in-person and streamed Spring and Summer performances, with public booking opening on 7 May 2021 and the doors opening to socially-distanced, in-person audiences from 17 May 2021.
Both The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera look forward to a host of world premieres, repertory favourites, and the world’s first opera in hyper-reality, all scheduled to take place on our beautiful and historic Main Stage, in our state-of-the-art Linbury Theatre, and streamed online as part of our ongoing #OurHouseToYourHouse programme.
Easter Sunday: St John Passion
and Documentary on Freelance Opera Artists in Lockdown
On Easter Sunday, ETO will launch its 2021 digital season on ETO at Home, the company’s new streaming platform.
The platform will be launched with the Spring 2020 production of Bach’s St John Passion. The performance was recorded on the 5th of March 2020 at Hackney Empire before ETO’s Spring 2020 tour was cancelled. The film weaves together footage of the live performance with 90 individual video contributions made by choir members in isolation from Cumbria to Cornwall who were due to participate in performances across the country.
The Passion will be accompanied by a 10-minute documentary exploring the lives of the production’s singers and musicians in the year since the performance. Both films will be free to access.
What is planned for the Royal Opera House in 2021/22
11 new productions, including 5 world premieres, and 20 revivals
An exciting roster of UK and international talent with many debuts
Full Season details to be announced on roh.org.uk on 1 June.
The Royal Opera House is excited to share early plans for its 2021/22 Season, the first full Royal Opera House Season since 2019. It includes five world premieres from The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera as well as a wealth of British and international talent taking to our stages in the first full ROH Season for eighteen months.
News about Longborough Opera in 2021
Longborough Festival Opera to stage three productions in Circus Big Top this season
Longborough Festival Opera has introduced a new venue for 2021: the Big Top. Three of the festival’s 2021 productions will take place in this new venue: Così fan tutte, The Return of Ulysses and The Cunning Little Vixen.
The indoor/outdoor space offers different and exciting theatrical possibilities for the creative teams, as well as excellent seating flexibility, allowing for a larger socially distanced audience than the Longborough theatre can offer. The space can also be turned into an outdoor venue as required, with the possibility of performing with the sides removed.
Longborough Artistic Director Polly Graham comments: ‘We are determined to bring our audience a wonderful and unforgettable season, and the safety of everyone involved is our priority. I am delighted that we can offer this exciting new venue for 2021 and keep live opera happening through such a challenging time. Opera in the round opens up so many different ways of expressing a story. Audiences will feel drawn in and almost part of the action. It’s opera undressed, as the focus shifts to the music, text and performance, rather than big sets and costumes, and the space itself also becomes a part of the storytelling.’The Big Top is a purpose-built auditorium with a socially distanced seating plan. The stage and amphitheatre will be clad in timber, to assist with the even spread of sound. As with the productions in the theatre, surtitles will be present for every production and visible from every seat.
2021 Performance Dates
Die Walküre: 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14 June 2021
Così fan tutte: 23, 26, 27, 29 June, 1, 3, 4 July 2021
The Return of Ulysses: 13, 15, 17, 18 July 2021
The Cunning Little Vixen: 29, 31 July, 1, 3 August 2021
Fundraising Campaign: The news of the new venue follows the success of Longborough’s 2020 fundraising campaign, which generated over £300,000 for freelance artists involved in the postponed festival and the generation of future work.
Longborough Festival Opera announces schedule for Der Ring des Nibelungen: Longborough Festival Opera will continue its Ring cycle this June, with a performance of Die Walküre in the beloved Longborough theatre. The festival will then stage Siegfried (2022) Götterdämmerung (2023) building to the full cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen in 2024.
Grange Park Opera Summer 2021
Tickets go on sale to the public on Tuesday 23 March for the 2021 season at Grange Park Opera, Surrey (10 June – 18 July).
This season covers a deliberately broad range of productions from the traditional, a rarity for connoisseurs, to a brand new – and highly topical – work. And then there’s an old favourite thrown in.
The season curtain-raiser is an unmissable production of Falstaff with opera superstar Bryn Terfel in the title role. Of equal importance, is the world premiere of The Life & Death of Alexander Litvinenko, the tragic story of the poisoning of the Russian dissident, which has been rescheduled from the Lost 2020 Season. Opera giant David Pountney directs Rimsky-Korsakov’s hidden gem: the composer’s first opera, Ivan the Terrible – also known as The Maid of Pskov – and then there’s the world’s favourite opera, La Bohème, to round off the season.