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An overview by Tony Hall, Executive Director of the
Royal Opera House
We have a great new Season ahead, and we are all thrilled about what
we have on offer – new operas including The Tempest, a Royal Opera
commission from Thomas Adès. Another highlight of the autumn is a
new production of Handel’s Orlando which features the Orchestra of
the Age of Enlightenment in the pit. Also, this is Monica Mason’s
first full Season as Director of The Royal Ballet, the highlights
including Cinderella and the award-winning Polyphonia by Christopher
Wheeldon.
It is also the first full season for ROH2 the department I set up 18
months ago under Deborah Bull. ROH2 runs performances in the Linbury
Studio Theatre, the Clore Studio Upstairs and other spaces round the
House. The idea is to sponsor new work with new artists, and to help
us bring in new audiences. A flavour of what is planned includes a
week of work new to London called ‘Festival of Firsts’ sponsored by
The Helen Hamlyn Trust in memory of her husband, Paul. We want ROH2
to become the home for chamber opera and begin with our
co-production with Music Theatre Wales of Param Vir’s Ion with two
further chamber operas later in the Season. NITRO at the Opera is a
day-long festival presenting newly commissioned work with a
classical voice from nine black composers. And Cathy Marston returns
to work in the Linbury Studio Theatre presenting new choreography.
Finally, ROH2 will revive William Tuckett’s The Wind in the Willows
for Christmas.
The Royal Opera House is committed to giving you world-class
performances. That is the core of what we do. But we also want, at
the same time, to reach out and engage with as many people as
possible. The launch of Open House marks a five-year commitment by
BP to live relays of opera and ballet performances in London. With
their support the free relays will, for the first time, also be seen
in Belfast, Gateshead, Liverpool and Sheffield, in addition to the
Covent Garden Piazza. I am also delighted to announce the return of
the Paul Hamlyn Performances in the autumn. We hope these two major
initiatives will help us to reach out to new audiences, especially
those who have never seen a ballet or opera performance.
This year our Education department is launching a CD-ROM of Peter
Grimes, to allow school pupils to build their own version of Grimes
on a PC. It is a real innovation and one that I am certain will
engage children of all ages.
All of us at the House are also committed to trying to keep our
prices as affordable as we can. For the third Season running, half
the seats for every performance will be held at £50 or less. We are
also continuing with the experiment of a low top-price for opera –
last year we had two operas at £50. This year it will be slightly
different: Thomas Adès’s The Tempest will have a top price of £50
and three other operas, Sweeney Todd, Peter Grimes and Lady Macbeth
of Mtsensk, will have a top price of £75 (20 performances in all).
We are also introducing a new lower tier of pricing for the side
areas of the Stalls.
I hope you agree that the Season we are announcing is full of real
excitement, range and interest.
In my first full Season as Director, it is exciting for me to be
able to make plans for the Company from a repertory as large and
diverse as The Royal Ballet’s. Altogether, it takes approximately
eighty five dancers, fourteen choreographers, twenty composers and
conductors, designers and repetiteurs from around the world to make
the basic ingredients of our 2003/2004 Season. Although the choice
is far from easy, I feel that the very different facets of the
Company’s work will be amply demonstrated in the variety of
programmes on offer throughout the year.
In the autumn, the Company will present two triple bills, the first
of which features a work new to the Company from British
choreographer, Christopher Wheeldon. Polyphonia, winner of the 2003
Olivier Award, was made for soloists of New York City Ballet last
year, and is set to piano pieces of György Ligeti. The second ballet
is George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments with music by Paul
Hindemith, a classic from this great choreographer whose centenary
we will celebrate in 2004. Balanchine took as his inspiration the
four temperaments of antiquity and the medieval four humours,
provoking a ballet of contrasting moods and images. This revival
continues the relationship with Dance Theater of Harlem with two
guest artists from the company appearing during this run of
performances. Jiéí Kylían’s Sinfonietta, set to Janá¹ek’s glorious
score and first performed by the Company earlier this year,
concludes this programme.
The second mixed programme which opens with Mark Morris’s Gong,
consists largely of new work. William Tuckett will create again for
the Company and the work of two other British choreographers will be
seen on the main stage for the first time. Russell Maliphant will
make a new piece for Sylvie Guillem and the “Ballet Boyz”, Michael
Nunn and William Trevitt and Wayne McGregor will also create a new
ballet for the Company.
The Company will celebrate two anniversaries during the Season. In
May it will remember Serge Diaghilev who died seventy five years
ago, with a mixed programme of ballets associated with the first
half of the 20th Century. Diaghilev was perhaps the greatest
impresario of that period and his influence is
still very much with us. Frederick Ashton made his version of
Daphnis and Chloe in 1951, set to Ravel’s shimmering score created
by the composer at Diaghilev’s request. L’Apres-midi d’un faune, and
Le Spectre de la rose showcased the remarkable talents of Vaslav
Nijinsky. Both these works were created for Diaghilev’s Ballets
Russes as was Bronislava Nijinska’s monumental masterpiece, Les
Noces, depicting episodes in the private and public rituals of a
Russian peasant wedding, which completes the evening.
In January, the Company celebrates the centenary of one of
Diaghilev’s protégés, George Balanchine, whose early work was also
created for the Ballets Russes. Agon, The Prodigal Son and Symphony
in C are three wonderfully contrasting examples of this great
choreographer’s creative genius.
Two of the eight full-length ballets seen during the year will be
new productions. Frederick Ashton’s first full-length ballet,
Cinderella, will return at Christmas with its first performance on
23rd December sixty five years to the day after Moira Shearer and
Michael Somes first danced the leading roles. Prokofiev’s score for
this full-length work is wonderfully evocative of its mysterious and
magical fantasy world, encompassing the comedy and pantomime of the
Ugly Sisters to be performed for the first time by Anthony Dowell
and Wayne Sleep.
The timeless fairytale follows the down-trodden Cinderella from her
domestic imprisonment to freedom through the intervention of her
Fairy Godmother. As with all fairytales the road to happiness does
not come without a set of rules to complicate matters.
Kenneth MacMillan’s Isadora, first seen in 1981, returns with a new
concept by theatre director David Leveaux, based on MacMillan’s
original choreography. Inspired by the tempestuous life and loves of
the American dancer and teacher Isadora Duncan, and using text taken
from her diaries, the central role is shared between a dancer and an
actress. The name of Isadora Duncan evokes colourful images: her
‘Greek’-inspired dance, her dismissal of social convention and her
untimely death in a sports car on the Riviera. But this was also the
life of an individual spirit whose conviction and artistic vision
put the expressive power of dance at its very heart. MacMillan’s
interpretation of her life in scenes and impressions remains true to
the artistic spirit of Isadora herself, for its combination through
two acts of words, music and choreography explore the moods of her
life as much as describe its events. Richard Rodney Bennett’s
eclectic score incorporates pastiches of the classical music Isadora
danced to, along with the popular ragtime and early jazz soundscapes
of her times.
Two other full length works by MacMillan are also included in the
season; Romeo and Juliet, now firmly established as a 20th Century
classic and Mayerling, the powerfully dramatic story of the events
surrounding the double death of Crown Prince Rudolf of
Austria-Hungary and his young mistress, Mary Vetsera.
Natalia Makarova’s new production of The Sleeping Beauty returns in
the spring and her production of La Bayadère opens the Season in
October. We will dedicate the performances of La Bayadère to the
memory of John Lanchbery, who died earlier this year. He was
Principal Conductor to The Royal Ballet for twelve years and made an
outstanding and unique contribution to the repertoire through his
close collaboration with Ashton and MacMillan. The exoticism of
India provides the setting for La Bayadère’s tale of love, murder
and revenge. The love of the warrior Solor for the beautiful temple
dancer Nikiya provokes the murderous jealousy of her wicked rival,
Gamzatti, encouraged by the High Brahmin, whose own designs on
Nikiya are less than pure. Seeking solace after the death of his
love, Solor’s opium-induced delusions present a ‘Kingdom of the
Shades’ saturated with her image to create the most hypnotic and
famous line of arabesque penchées in classical dance. With the final
collapse of the temple, Solor and Nikiya are reunited as spirits
beyond the reach of man.
Peter Wright’s highly acclaimed production of Giselle and John
Cranko’s masterwork Onegin, complete the year’s repertory.
Further details can be obtained from
The Royal Opera House Booking Office
Tel: 020 7304 4000
Fax: 020 7212 9460
Or see their website
http://www.royaloperahouse.org
Booking for the 2003/2004 season opens
on 5 August 2003 |