Itch

Opera’s geekiest hero and his light-fingered sister battle to save a mysterious new element from the clutches of a shadowy corporation in Jonathan Dove’s explosive adventure story.

Commissioned by Opera Holland Park with the generous support of the Element Hunters, and premiered in 2023 with spectacular multi-storied kinetic designs by Frankie Bradshaw, Jake Wiltshire and Jack Henry James Fox, Stephen Barlow’s “gorgeous” (The Independent) production of Jonathan Dove and Alasdair Middleton’s explosive adventure story, Itch, returns, based on the best-selling novels by broadcaster Simon Mayo. In the second opera of the 2025 Season to feature the sea, our science-obsessed teenaged hero, Itchingham Lofte, discovers a previously unknown element of tremendous and dangerous power and must battle to keep it from the grasp of a shadowy global corporation, aided by his younger sister, Jack, his science teacher, Watkins, and his father, Nicholas. Praised in The Observer for the sheer range of colour in Dove’s shimmering score, Itch is “an exciting, moving, relevant new opera – and an undoubted hit”.

In addition to four performances by the main cast, Itch will also be performed by the 2025 cohort of Opera Holland Park Young Artists in their annual showcase at the Schools and Discovery Matinees.