As another year dawns, it’s time to look ahead to some of the key highlights for 2017. The top houses will often cast revivals generously (use the artist search facility to catch your favourite singers), but it’s the new productions which will grab most of the attention in the months to come. Here is our selection of what to look out for, along with a couple of tips for new productions yet to be announced.
In the UK, departing director of the Royal Opera, Kasper Holten, presents a new Meistersinger with newly knighted Bryn Terfel as Hans Sachs. There is the UK première of Thomas Adès’ new opera The Exterminating Angel, which was unveiled at last summer’s Salzburg Festival. Keith Warner directs Verdi’s Otello, replacing the much-loved Elijah Moshinsky staging. The production is also scheduled to feature Jonas Kaufmann’s debut in the title role. Highlight of English National Opera’s “bare bones” 2016/17 season is undoubtedly Ryan Wigglesworth’s new opera The Winter’s Tale, boasting a fabulous cast.
Outside London, the standout of Welsh National Opera’s spring season is a rarity – Frank Martin’s take on the Tristan and Isolde story, Le Vin herbé, in a staging by Polly Graham. Opera North enters an enchanted fairy land for its winter/spring season, with new productions of The Snow Maiden, Hansel and Gretel and La Cenerentola, all attractively cast. Sir David McVicar is much in demand (see Metropolitan Opera) and returns to Scottish Opera to direct his first Pelléas et Mélisande in February. Andrei Bondarenko and Carolyn Sampson lead an intriguing cast.
Glyndebourne Festival Opera has some adventurous new productions this season, led by the world première of Brett Dean’s Hamlet, featuring a great British cast. Cavalli’s Hipermestra will be new on most people’s radars, and Claus Guth directs a keenly anticipated La clemenza di Tito. Programming double casts for a first revival of Tom Cairns’ La traviata looks an attempt to cash in on more familiar repertoire.
The crowded summer season in the UK has got even busier. Grange Park Opera splits from its Hampshire home into the brand new Theatre in the Woods in West Horsley, leaving The Grange Festival springing in its place. Wasfi Kani’s fabled powers of persuasion have wooed Joseph Calleja to sing his first Cavaradossi in Tosca, while Die Walküre and Jenůfa complete a strong line up. Grange Festival plays it lower key (the Così fan tutte with maverick conductor Teodor Currentzis has been quietly dropped), but Monteverdi’s Ulisse is attractively cast and there looks to be a good ensemble for Albert Herring – two smaller scale operas which are perhaps more appropriate for the tiny theatre than some of the ambitious blockbusters GPO attempted in recent years. One thing the new company needs to improve is access to the venue, particularly for those reliant on public transport.
Garsington Opera features good casts for Semele and The Marriage of Figaro (a perfect festival opera), though many of the same singers who proved insecure in last year’s L’italiana in Algeri are back for the return leg, Rossini’s romp Il turco in Italia.
The pick of Opera Holland Park’s season is Leoncavallo’s Zazà, but there is also Elizabeth Llewellyn leading Puccini’s La rondine. Longborough – which is a key destination for Wagnerites – stages a new Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Anthony Negus. Aldeburgh Festival opens with Netia Jones directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while Buxton Festival features Macbeth, Albert Herring and Mozart’s Lucio Silla.
Heading across the Atlantic, upcoming highlights at the Metropolitan Opera include Mary Zimmerman’s new Rusalka, replacing a much-loved classic. It stars Kristine Opolais, whose performances of the title role in Munich largely established her career. Robert Carsen’s new staging of Der Rosenkavalier – currently running in London – transfers to the Met, also led by Renée Fleming, making her farewell to the operatic stage. Santa Fe has five new productions, including The Golden Cockerel (a co-production with Dallas Opera) and the world première of Mason Bates’ The (R)Evolution of Steve Jobs.
Bayerische Staatsoper features a new production of Rossini’s Semiramide (a co-production with the ROH), with Joyce DiDonato taking the title role. Later, the season contains Andrea Chénier and Schreker’s rarely performed Die Gezeichneten. In Berlin, Deutsche Oper has Graham Vick directing Britten’s Death in Venice, while Richard Jones’ Boris Godunov (familiar to London audiences last season) transfers to Berlin.
Wim Wenders makes his operatic directorial debut at Staatsoper Berlin with Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, while the ever-enterprising Komische Oper fields Mussorgsky’s Sorochintsy Fair and a ballet/opera double bill of Petrushka and L’Enfant et les sortilèges. If it’s rarities you’re after, Gounod’s Cinq Mars gets a new production at Oper Leipzig. The Salzburg Festival boasts some tasty fare, with William Kentridge directing Wozzeck, the controversial Peter Sellars turning his attention to La clemenza di Tito, Aida (marking Anna Netrebko’s role debut) and Aribert Reimann’s Lear.
The Opéra de Paris has a clutch of new stagings led by Claus Guth’s Lohengrin, and choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker turns to Così fan tutte. Calixto Bieito’s Carmen – unveiled eons ago in 1999 and seemingly on a world tour ever since – takes it Parisian bow. Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden is given the Dmitri Tcherniakov treatment. Elsewhere in France, Toulouse features new productions of Verdi’s Ernani and Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète.
Inventive programming characterises Zurich Opera, which features Charpentier’s Medée, Manfred Trojahn’s Orest, and a Bieito-directed Fiery Angel (Prokofiev), while Damiano Michieletto turns to Rigoletto at Dutch National Opera. Venice’s La Fenice stages a real rarity – Cilea’s Gina, while Opera de Liège puts on Verdi’s Jérusalem, his French rewrite of crusader opera I Lombardi.
Looking ahead to next season, Paris opens with a new production (in French) of Don Carlos, starrily cast: Jonas Kaufmann, Sonya Yoncheva, Ludovic Tézier, Elīna Garanča and Ildar Abdrazakov. La Scala opens its season with a new production of Andrea Chénier, while David McVicar directs two new productions at the Met: Tosca (a role debut for Anna Netrebko) and Norma, with Sondra Radvanovsky.
Opera Vlanderen stages a new production of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane, directed by David Bösch, and San Francisco features a new John Adams opera based on the Californian gold rush. ENO artistic director Daniel Kramer is at the helm for a new production of La traviata, while WNO’s autumn season is set to feature a new David Pountney Eugene Onegin, starring Natalya Romaniw. Highlights of Wexford’s opera festival is set to be Cherubini’s Medea, starring Lise Davidsen.
