Opera 2018 preview: Royal Opera House to kickstart mammoth year

The new includes an eagerly awaited Bizet’s Carmen by Australian director Barrie Kosky, opening February 6, and a powerful From The House Of The Dead, Janàcek’s final work set in a Siberian gulag, from March 7, directed by Krysztof Warlikowski.

Two world premieres include Lessons In Love And Violence by George Benjamin and Martin Crimp, creators of Written on Skin (May 10-26). Opera Rara gives the world premiere of Donizetti’s L’Ange De Nisida in concert. The opera, composed in 1838, was abandoned when the commissioning theatre went bankrupt. Joyce el-Khoury sings the title role (July 18-21) and Sir Mark Elder conducts.

Of the revivals, two international divas play two different Lady Macbeths. Russian star Anna Netrebko is Lady Macbeth in Phyllida Lloyd’s red and gold retelling of Verdi’s Macbeth, (from March 25). Richard Jones’s staging of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk (from April 12) sees Eva-Maria Westbroek as the housewife with a lethal recipe for goulash (roh.org.uk).

English National Opera’s new production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, (from February 13), is eagerly awaited by G & S fans. Mezzo Samantha Price sings the title role, Yvonne Howard is Queen of the Fairies, and Andrew Shore the Lord Chancellor in this satirical fantasy of a dispute between the House of Lords and the fairy kingdom over who should marry the Lord Chancellor’s ward Phyllis (Ellie Laugharne.) Director is Cal (One Man, Two Guvnors)McCrystal.

Three revivals not to be missed are Phelim McDermott’s spectacular production of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha (from February 1), Robert Carsen’s colourful take on Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (March 1), and Fiona Shaw’s staging of Mozart’s The Marriage Of Figaro (March 29) with Lucy Crowe as the Countess and Dutch baritone Thomas Oliemans as Figaro (eno.org).

Glyndebourne Festival Opera, opening May 19, revives four productions, including Sir David McVicar’s classic Bollywood baroque Giulio Cesare, in which Danielle de Niese wowed audiences in 2005 as an all-singing-all-dancing Cleopatra. Rising soprano Joélle Harvey will be sex kitten Cleo, and mezzo Sarah Connolly returns as Giulio Cesare. New productions are Debussy’s Pelléas Et Mélisande directed by Stefan Herheim and Samuel Barber’s rarely performed Vanessa, described as an “operatic thriller from the age of Hitchcock”, directed by Keith Warner (glyndebourne.com).

Garsington Opera’s main new productions are Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte directed by Netia Jones, Richard Strauss’s Capriccio in which Swedish soprano Miah Persson makes her Garsington debut as the Countess, and Verdi’s Falstaff with Henry Waddington as the fat knight. Festival opens May 31 (garsingtonopera.org).

Opera Holland Park opening May 29 combines favourite operas – La Traviata, Cosi Fan Tutte – with rarities, such as Mascagni’s Isabeau. OHP’s first Richard Strauss opera Ariadne Auf Naxos has Jennifer France as Zerbinetta, Mardi Byers as Ariadne, and Eleanor Bron as the Major Domo. A must (operahollandpark.com).

“Fatal Passions” perfectly describes Opera North’s four productions. French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels is tragic heroine Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, (from January 19). Other operas are Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, inspired by the real-life assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden, Alessandro Talevi’s zany music hall staging of Don Giovanni and Richard Strauss’s shocker Salome with Jennifer Holloway as Salome (operanorth.co.uk).

Welsh National Opera opens on February 2 with David Pountney’s production of Verdi’s La Forza Del Destino, in repertoire with revivals of Puccini’s Tosca, and Mozart’s Don Giovanni (wno.org.uk).