Classical music, opera, ballet and dance in Norwich, United Kingdom

English Touring Opera gives Gluck's reformist masterpiece a suitably blood-spattered outing in a production which keeps the opera in touch with its classical roots. 

A clever programme of mid-20th century American music by Carter, Copland and contemporaries, watered down with a light sprinkling of Arlen and Gershwin.

Eva-Maria Höckmayr's brilliantly unsettling double vision of Tannhäuser sees our hero both being, and watching himself being overwhelmed by psychic anguish, appalled at the futility of pleasure, and tortured by his savage envy of salvation. 

Rambert’s SUB is an intense and visceral exploration of male physicality. Seven male dancers push their bodies to the limit performing Itzik Galili’s choreography with amazing energy. Lit from above in pools of light, bodies appear from the shadows, create new images, and disappear like phantoms.

Inspired by Dickens’ novel of the same title, Northern Ballet’s piece really captures the essence of Dickensian London at Christmas time. Dickens’ famous renderings of the festive season made much of his work almost synonymous with Christmas. Dickens’ most popular novel, A Christmas Carol redefined the spirit of Christmas as an enduring sense of community and sharing.

The fourteen-year-old Benjamin Britten was already a prolific young composer, albeit without any formal training, when he heard Frank Bridge’s The Sea at the 1927 Norfolk and Norwich Triennial Festival. Hearing this performance and also meeting Bridge (who later became his composition teacher) were seminal events in the youngster’s life.