Leeds-based Opera North’s plans for 2025-26 – true to the company’s philosophy and tradition – have a strong streak of innovation but also offer two perennially popular operas.
And in Leeds itself there’s operatic Christmas comedy in the form of a new show called Pass the Spoon: it’s set on a daytime TV cookery programme, hosted by “June Spoon” and “Phillip Fork” who, assisted by a manic-depressive egg and a highly-strung banana, must prepare a meal for Mr Granules, a demanding diner.
First in the new ideas list in the autumn season is the opening, in Leeds, by the Opera North Youth Company (both singers and orchestra players) of a UK premiere: Dame Judith Weir’s opera The Secret of the Black Spider, in its “Hamburg” version. It will be the first time an opera by a female composer has been performed on Leeds Grand's stage by Opera North, and the first time the company's young people - singers and musicians - have opened the season.
Two main company operas follow and tour to Newcastle Theatre Royal, Salford’s Lowry and Nottingham Theatre Royal: Handel’s Susanna (a new production in collaboration with Phoenix Dance Theatre, directed by Olivia Fuchs with choreography by Marcus Jarrell Willis), and a revival of Phyllida Lloyd’s production of Puccini’s La Bohème, which brings the story into the 1950s and is probably the most frequently revived show the company has, first seen more than 30 years ago and frequently revived.
In Leeds the company is also moving into films-with-live-accompaniment, as its orchestra will play for a night each of Milos Forman’s Amadeus and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in late October. Then in December there’s Pass the Spoon, by David Fennessy, described as “undoubtedly the craziest ‘sort-of'-opera offered this side of Christmas”.
The winter-spring season 2026 opens with a new production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro – the first Opera North has created with the words sung in Italian – and to mark the 50th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s death there’s a revival of his Peter Grimes, in the Olivier award-winning production by Phyllida Lloyd first seen 20 years ago. These two operas will travel to Nottingham Theatre Royal, Salford’s Lowry and Newcastle Theatre Royal, and The Marriage of Figaro will also go to Hull New Theatre.
Singers announced for the operas include several returning stars: in Handel’s Susanna, Anna Dennis, who sang the Queen of the Night in the company’s recent The Magic Flute, is Susanna; Claire Lees, who was Pamina, is Daniel; Elin Pritchard, who was the Vixen in 2023’s The Cunning Little Vixen, and Katie Bird, who was Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady last year, share the role of Musetta in La Boheme; and James Newby (Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2024) is Count Almaviva, with Katherine Broderick (Brunnhilde in 2016’s Siegfried) as Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro. There will also be a number of young, new-to-the-company voices in both the Puccini and Mozart casts.
Laura Canning, Opera North's general director, said: “This year we’re championing the next generation of talent as we welcome our youth company to open the season in Leeds. We’ll be celebrating strong women in our creative teams and on stage, and continuing our commitment to creative collaborations to produce exciting new work.”
The company will also be repeating The Big Opera Adventure, performed for younger audiences last year in Leeds, Newcastle, Salford and Nottingham, in the autumn, and collaborating with Streetwise Opera in Nottingham on a short performance, working with a group which comprises homeless people and those recently out of homelessness, based on The Marriage of Figaro in March 2026.
More info here; tickets from the individual theatres