English Touring Opera present St John Passion, Puccini’s La Bohème & Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel
English Touring Opera will return to York Theatre Royal on April 6 to mark Easter with Bach’s towering St John Passion, one of greatest oratorios ever composed. ETO Artistic Director James Conway’s staging unites professional soloists and baroque specialists the Old Street Band with singers from local York based choirs, including the York Theatre Royal Choir, to inspire audiences with Bach’s sharp storytelling and intense vision of hope.
English Touring Opera will also present a poetic production of one of the most popular of operas and a lively new production of a comic Russian fantasy by Rimskey-Korsakov.
Puccini’s famous opera La Bohème, about a poet who falls in love with a consumptive seamstress, is a cultural touchstone throughout the world – “a poignant memory in music of love and loss – like a shard of mirror in which one sees one’s youth”, as English Touring Opera’s Artistic Director James Conway describes it.
It’s a story of young love, starting on Christmas Eve in a Parisian garret. On this festive, snowy night the lovers draw close but poverty forces them apart.
A send-up of corruption and sloth in government, The Golden Cockerel holds up a mirror to the last days of the Romanovs. “Despite its political edge, which meant it fell foul of the Tsarist censors, the music is daringly sensual and erotic at points. For many it’s an undiscovered joy of an opera,” Conway says of this, the first opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov to be produced and toured by ETO.
“Fantasy, mischief and musical delight combine in the composer’s final and favourite opera, based on a poem by Alexander Pushkin. The score is bursting with the exotic orchestrations that made Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite Scheherezade so popular.
ETO’s new Music Director Gerry Cornelius conducts James Conway’s production, starring baritone Grant Doyle (most recently with ETO in the 2019 production of Verdi’s Macbeth) in the role of the indolent Emperor Dodon, and soprano Paula Sides as the seductive Queen of Shemakha. The production also features Edward Hawkins, Amy J Payne, Robert Lewis, Luci Briginshaw and Alys Mererid Roberts in the title role.
St John Passion is presented on April 6, La Bohème on April 8 and The Golden Cockerel on April 9.
2 for 1 tickets are available for all three produtions as part of the National Lottery’s Love your Local Theatre Campaign. More info and Terms and Conditions.
