Preview: Kiss Me Kate at Newcastle Theatre Royal

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BROADWAY’S LEGENDARY KISS ME, KATE HEADS FOR NEWCASTLE SHOWDOWN

Kiss Me Kate

Newcastle Theatre Royal

Friday 6^th – Saturday 7^th November 2015

A major new production of one of Broadway’s greatest treasures, the legendary ‘battle of the sexes’ Kiss Me, Kate is heading for Newcastle Theatre Royal in November, so prepare for high heels, high jinx and outrageous musical mischief as the sparks start to fly!  Appearing for three performances only Friday 6^th – Saturday 7^th November 2015.

Cole Porter’s classic musical comedy is set both on and off-stage during a performance of The Taming of the Shrew. The show revolves around the tempestuous love lives of actor-manager Fred Graham and his leading lady and ex-wife, Lilli Vanessi. Throw in Fred’s current paramour Lois Lane, her gambler boyfriend Bill – and a couple of gangsters who somehow get caught up in the show – and the stage is set for a funny and farcical battle! 

A charming homage to the sparkling wit of Shakespeare and an irresistible celebration of the joy and madness of working in theatre, Cole Porter’s witty, jazz-inflected score features hit after hit, with show-stopping numbers including Another Op’nin’ Another Show, So in Love, Always True to You in My Fashion and Too Darn Hot.

Performed by a cast of truly outst

anding opera and West End singers, with the full scale orchestra of co-producers Opera North, the show brings the magical sound of Broadway and the golden age of MGM musicals back to life on stage.

Tiffany Graves stars as Lois Lane/Bianca. Most recently seen as Ulla in The Producers 2015 UK tour, Tiffany’s previous West End roles including both Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart in Chicago; Sweet Charity at the Theatre Royal Haymarket; and Killer Queen in We Will Rock You.

Bill Calhoun/Lucentio is played by musical theatre star and 2015 UK Theatre Awards nominee Ashley Day, who was at the Theatre Royal in June playing the lead role of Curly in Oklahoma! to critical acclaim (Royal and Derngate and UK Tour) and has previously appeared as Elder Price in The Book of Mormon in the West End.

Top talent from the West End meets top talent from the world of opera as Tiffany and Ashley are joined by Jeni Bern as Lilli Vanessi/Katherine and Quirijn de Lang as Fred Graham/Petruchio. Jeni’s roles at Opera North have included Tytania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while Quirijn has most recently played Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro.

This new production is conducted by David Charles Abell (Sweeney Todd, English National Opera, Fiddler on the Roof, Grange Park Opera) and directed by Jo Davies, who is responsible for a string of recent five-star successes for Opera North, including Ruddigore, Carousel and The Marriage of Figaro. What’s more, The Marriage of Figaro has just been nominated in the Achievement in Opera category for this year’s UK Theatre Awards.

Exciting new choreography is by Will Tuckett (Royal Ballet, English National Ballet) whose recent shows include West Side Story (Sage Gateshead).

Kiss Me, Kate is an Opera North co-production with Welsh National Opera.

Tickets:

Kiss Me, Kate is at Newcastle Theatre Royal for three performances only between Friday 6^th and Saturday 7^th November 2015, playing evenings at 7.15pm and matinee on Sat 2.15pm.

Tickets from £18.50 (save 50p per ticket online). Tickets can be purchased online at www.theatreroyal.co.uk or from the Theatre Royal Box Office on 08448 11 21 21 (Calls cost 7ppm plus your phone company’s access charge)

 

Preview: Opera North at Newcastle Theatre Royal

La Traviata Returns To Lead Vibrant Spring Opera Season

Opera North

Newcastle Theatre Royal

Tuesday 3 - Saturday 7 March 2015

Opera North’s critically acclaimed production of La traviata is set to return to Newcastle Theatre Royal this spring, accompanied by three of the most exuberant operas ever written.  The season runs Tuesday 3 - Saturday 7 March 2015.

As well as the Verdi masterpiece, Opera North return with Mozart's sublime comedy The Marriage of Figaro (Thu 5 & Sat 7 March) and a double bill of  Falla’s extraordinary La vida breve and Puccini’s comic Gianni Schicchi (Tue 3 March).

The Marriage of Figaro

The Marriage of Figaro is one of opera's most tender, funny and heart-warming works. Right from the famous overture which sets the scene for comic misadventures, Mozart's music expresses all the joy and pain of love, along with the agony and ecstasy of desire.

On Figaro's wedding day, he discovers that his master, the Count, is in pursuit of his bride, Susanna. The Countess is heartbroken by her husband's infidelity – but is herself soon the object of the teenage desires of the page boy, Cherubino. To top it all off, Figaro has borrowed money from the housekeeper, and if he can't pay it back, he'll have to marry her instead!

The Marriage of Figaro

A top international and British cast includes baritone Richard Burkhard as Figaro and Norwegian soprano Silvia Moi (Papagena in Kenneth Branagh’s The Magic Flute) as Susanna.  The production has already garnered critical acclaim and received multiple five star reviews when it opened in Leeds last week.

Two outstanding operas come together to create one extraordinary evening, in a double bill of La vida breve and Gianni Schicchi (Tue 3 March).

Director Christopher Alden’s ferocious take on Manuel de Falla’s short exuberant opera, La vida breve is an intense, unforgettable experience. An all or nothing tragedy of a woman who loves a worthless man, the atmosphere is heightened by the influence of Andalusian folk song and Spanish dance rhythms. French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels (Cio-Cio San, Madama Butterfly) stars in the devastating lead role of Salud.

A perfect, light-hearted companion to La vida breve, Gianni Schicchi is Puccini’s only outright comedy, based on an episode in Dante’s Inferno. Puccini’s exquisite music delightfully illustrates the greed and absurdity driving the actions of a dying man’s scheming relatives.  With its vivid characterisation it is a comic masterpiece in miniature. Featuring one of Puccini’s best loved arias, ‘O mio babbino caro,’ the production stars one of the current great operatic performers, Christopher Purves, in the title role. 

Alessandro Talevi’s opulent and sensational Belle Époque production of La traviata (4 & 6 March), a smash hit sell-out when it played the Theatre Royal in November 2014,  returns with new cast members Anna Jeruc-Kopec as Violetta and Stephen Gadd as Germont. South Korean tenor Ji-Min Park continues to charm audiences as Alfredo.

Verdi's great tear-jerker proved an instant hit in the autumn, with its glamorous costumes and stunning sets evoking the decadence and debauchery of Belle Époque Paris.

Violetta is a courtesan to the rich, whose world of wine, song and reckless pleasure is turned upside down when she falls in love with a young nobleman, Alfredo.  Unable to suppress her feelings, she gives up her lavish lifestyle in Paris for a simpler life with him in the country. But when her past threatens his family’s honour, she is forced to sacrifice her only chance of real love.

Tickets:

Opera North is at Newcastle Theatre Royal Tue 3 March until Sat 7 March 2015. 

Tickets are available from £16.50 (a booking fee of 95p - £1.95 will apply to most tickets) and can be purchased from the Theatre Royal Box Office on 08448 11 21 21 or select your own seat and book online at www.theatreroyal.co.uk

Preview: New Opera North Season at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal

New Opera North Season

at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal

Award winning company Opera North has announced its new 2014/15 seasons at the Theatre Royal, and featuring works from each of the last four centuries in a combination of revivals and new stagings, offers the perfect balance of the comic and the serious.  Prepare to be swept away 11 – 15 November ‘14  & 3 – 7 March ‘15.

The season opens with a revival of Daniel Slater’s hugely successful 1998 production of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride (11 & 13 November), the ultimate feel-good opera - being energetic, comic and colourful. 

This production is updated to a setting in Czechoslovakia in 1972, four years after the Prague Spring. Mařenka and Jeník are in love, and announce their engagement at a village party. But her father, has demanded she marries the son of the wealthiest man in town. In the end, youth and cunning outsmart age and power, and the constraints of rural village life are thrown off, for a while at least, when the circus comes to town. Smetana’s music for The Bartered Bride oozes spontaneity and vitality, its energy generated by bold contrasts of mood and atmosphere and exuberant folk-song rhythms. Scottish soprano Kate Valentine sings Marenka, returning to Opera North following Konstanze The Abduction from the Seraglio (2009). American tenor Brenden Gunnell makes his Company debut as Jenik.

Next up is Opera North’s first new production since 1999 of one of the most universally popular operas - Verdi’s La Traviata (12 & 14 Nov ‘14, 4 & 6 March ’15). A highly emotional story, showing the strength of unconditional love through compassion and self-sacrifice, it features exceptionally powerful music that carries the audience up and down through the scandal, joy, and despair of the desperate tale.   Alfredo Germont, a young nobleman falls in love with Violetta, a courtesan fighting tuberculosis. The pair live together in the countryside unmarried. When Alfredo is away, his father, Germont, begs Violetta to leave his son, as she is bringing disgrace to the family. Despite her love, she agrees and returns to her old life in Paris. When Germont realises he has made a mistake, he knows he must make amends for the sake of his son, but as Violetta’s health deteriorates, is there time? South Korean soprano Hye-Youn Lee makes her role debut as Violetta in her first appearance for Opera North. Hotly tipped as a rising operatic star, previous UK roles include Cio-Cio San for Scottish Opera, and Lisette La Rondine for Opera Holland Park.

A new production of Monteverdi’s last opera The Coronation of Poppea will be performed on one night only, 15 November ‘14.  Never before staged by Opera North, this is one of the earliest and greatest of operas, and a brand new English translation by Tim Albery whose most recent new productions for the Company have included Otello (2013) and Giulio Cesare (2012). Based loosely on actual events in 1^st-century AD Rome, The Coronation of Poppea charts the consuming erotic obsession of the Emperor Nero for the beautiful Poppea. Ruthlessly sweeping aside anyone who stands in the way of their union – including Nero’s wife Octavia and the poet and philosopher Seneca – Nero and Poppea triumph over all their opponents and rejoice in one of the most sexually-charged love duets ever written. The amorality of this masterpiece ensures that it remains one of the most shocking and compelling of operas.  The cast of superb singer-actors is led by the American soprano Sandra Piques Eddy (Poppea) and the British counter-tenor James Laing (Nerone).  The conductor is Laurence Cummings, one of Britain’s most exciting and versatile exponents of historically-informed performance. 

The Spring welcomes a new production of Mozart’s effervescent comedy The Marriage of Figaro (5 & 7 March). 

Opera North's first new production of the famous opera since 2006 is directed by Jo Davies, who returns to the Company following highly acclaimed productions of Ruddigore and Carousel, to direct a cast of versatile singer-actors. It’s Figaro’s wedding day, and to add to the usual worries, Figaro learns that his philandering master, the Count, is out to bed his bride-to-be Susanna. Bursting with music evoking all the joy and pain of love and desire, it is timeless and sublime. Richard Burkhard, a familiar figure to Opera North audiences, sings Figaro, following his Sir Despard Murgatroyd in Ruddigore (2010/11). Other recent roles include Papageno The Magic Flute for Scottish Opera, and Marcello La Bohème and Garibaldo Rodelinda for ENO.  Norwegian soprano Silvia Moi makes her Company debut as Susanna, a role she has previously sung in Malmö and at the Komische Oper Berlin. She was Papagena in Kenneth Branagh’s film version of The Magic Flute.

And finally, a revival of Falla’s La Vida Breve will be staged on Tuesday 3 March in a double bill with a new production of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. Originally staged as one of Opera North’s groundbreaking ‘Eight Little Greats’ season of one-act operas in 2004, Christopher Alden’s ferocious take on de Falla’s short exuberant opera was an instant hit with critics and audiences. Telling the tragic story of a woman too much in love with a worthless man, it is intense and brutal, and full of highly atmospheric Andalusian folk song inspired music.  The perfect antidote to the doom ridden La Vida Breve, Gianni Schicchi is a light hearted satyr play played out around the death-bed of a rich man. A comic masterpiece in miniature, it includes some of Puccini’s most delightful music including the exquisite aria ‘O mio babbino caro’.  Jac van Steen conducts both La Vida Breve and Gianni Schicchi, returning to Opera North following Peter Grimes (2013) and several guest conductor appearances with the Orchestra of Opera North on the concert stage. Both pieces are directed by Christopher Alden, whose most recent work at Opera North includes Norma (2012) and Tosca (2008).

Richard Mantle, General Director of Opera North said: “Opera North's new 2014/15 Season exemplifies the broad range of work which has come to define the Company, and continues the spirit of bold and varied artistic programming which attracts audiences of all ages and tastes to engage with our work across the North of England and beyond.” 

On the Web:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OperaNorth?fref=ts

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Opera_North

Tickets:

The new Opera North Season appears at Newcastle Theatre Royal from Tue 11 – Sat 15 Nov 2014 and Tue 3 – Sat 7 Mar 2015 (all performances at 7pm).

Tickets are from £16.50 (a booking fee of 95p - £1.95 will apply to most tickets) and can be purchased from the Theatre Royal Box Office on 08448 11 21 21 or select your own seat and book online at www.theatreroyal.co.uk