English Touring Opera is banking on Bill for its spring season, with a tour featuring new productions of Bellini’s The Capulets and the Montagues (Romeo and Juliet to you and me), plus a smaller-scale compilation piece based on Shakespeare, using puppetry and the music of Purcell, Finzi, Amy Beach and Britten, called What Dreams May Come.
Company director Robin Norton-Hale said: “This spring's season features one of the landmark operas of the 19th Century alongside new works that draw inspiration from his themes and characters to create something entirely fresh and original.
“Bellini's The Capulets and the Montagues puts a new spin on one of Shakespeare’s best-loved stories and is a classic of bel canto repertoire, with a dramatic contrast of sumptuous music and destructive violence. What Dreams May Come combines puppetry and song in an intimate exploration of life, love and death, set to new orchestrations of music inspired by the works of Shakespeare.”
Soprano Jessica Cale – a first-prize winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Awards and audience prizewinner at the London Handel Festival's International Singing Competition – sings Giulietta in the Bellini, opposite mezzo-soprano Samantha Price, a regular performer with the Royal Opera and English National Opera, as Romeo. Brenton Spiteri stars as Tebaldo, with Timothy Nelson as Capello and Masimba Ushe as Lorenzo. Eloise Lally, who directed ETO’s 2023 production of Lucrezia Borgia, returns to direct this production. It will be sung in the original Italian, with English surtitles.
ETO's What Dreams May Come is inspired by Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, depicting the joys and sorrows of a long life, well lived. Singers include soprano Alys Mererid Roberts, mezzo-soprano Emily Hodkinson, tenor Tamsanqa Tylor Lemani and baritone Samuel Pantcheff. The piece has been devised and is directed by Valentina Ceschi, with Erika Gundesen conducting a small ensemble from the piano.
Performances in the north of England include York Theatre Royal (tonight, February 28, with March 1 performances of What Dreams May Come - matinee, and the Bellini in the evening; Gala Theatre Durham (March 19 the Bellini, March 20 What Dreams), Sheffield Lyceum (Bellini only, on April 4) and Buxton Opera House (April 8 What Dreams, April 9 the Bellini).
There are also schools performances in York, Sheffield, Gateshead, Newcastle and Durham of The Vanishing Forest, an imaginary operatic continuation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by Jonathan Ainscough and Michael Betteridge.
More info and tickets here