UK REGIONAL OPERA NEWS COVERAGE

La bohème. Glyndebourne. Three trumpeters blare out a fanfare as the chorus pours onto stage, ready to deliver the myriad vocal interjections which mark out the beginning of Act 2. But Glyndebourne is No Ordinary Opera, and this is no ordinary scene. On a single musical cue, thirty-six choristers, ...

Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and his partner Rachael Hewer eschewed making banana bread during the Covid lockdown and decided to write an opera. After the pandemic, they went on to work on other projects, but unexpectedly Glyndebourne agreed to stage their new work, which made its world premiere l...

Celebrated choreographer and director Lynne Hockney has been involved in Sir Peter Hall’s iconic version of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Glyndebourne since 2001. Now playing for the first time in the venue’s Autumn season, the production has been revived regularly since it...

Sir Peter Hall's iconic production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream has achieved legendary status since its premiere in 1981. In 2025, it has lost none of its magic, with the Glyndebourne audience still wide-eyed at the visual feast on stage....

PucciniAs the nights draw in, it seems highly appropriate to return to Glyndebourne for the start of its Autumn season and the chilly streets of Puccini’s La bohème. Floris Visser’s production, beautifully revived by Rachael Hewer, has the spectre of death ever-present. In this case, quite li...

The Royal Opera House has announced that Nicky Spence will replace Pavel Černoch in the tenor role of Dvořák’s The Spectre’s Bride during Jakub Hrůša and Friends in Concert on September 20, 2025. ...

Adapted from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, director Richard Jones’s glorious Falstaff makes a welcome return to Glyndebourne, losing none of its charm or deft comedy. It is playful, witty and a pure delight....

Welsh National Opera has revealed its WNO Orchestra concert programme which gets underway during the Autumn 2025 Season. Learn more and see the full lineup here! ...

You could be forgiven for thinking that there isn’t much more to be said about Le nozze di Figaro, the most performed opera in Glyndebourne’s history. However, Mozart’s classic role subversion comedy is deceptive in its simplicity: beneath the farce and improbable plot twists is a complex web ...

Le Nozze di Figaro is a piece I’ve been living with as long as I can remember. To me, it might be the best opera ever written: it makes me laugh, it moves me to tears, the plot twists still fill me with delight, and all the characters have potential for complexity and depth. It is the only piece I...

Even ardent opera fans may struggle to recall the story or the score for Mazeppa. Based on a poem by Pushkin, Tchaikovsky's opera has been unjustly overshadowed by his Eugene Onegin. Last staged at the London Coliseum in 1984, Grange Park Opera have landed a coup by engaging the English National O...

Just how much fun can you have at an oratorio about a Old Testament tale of jealousy, madness and death? Well, quite a lot as it happens at the return of Barry Kosky's remarkable production of Handel's Saul. This staging is opera at its most theatrical, with severed heads, a breast-feeding witch, a ...

Grange Park Opera has opened its new season with a crowd-pleaser. Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly remains problematic, with its story of a Japanese teenage geisha, impregnated and cruelly abandoned by an American lieutenant. However, it is still wildly popular, mainly due to its ravishing score....

Opera buffa is an ever-popular genre of the art, and more than two centuries after its composition, Rossini's Il barbière di Siviglia remains one this genre's most often staged operas. The music and lyrics are pure genius, but the success of this particular opera comes from an inherent understand...

Equity members of the Welsh National Opera chorus have voted in favour of industrial action in a re-ballot on the ongoing dispute over proposed cuts to jobs, terms and conditions. ...

Opera North has announced its repertoire for the year. The season will kick off in September with The Secret of the Black Spider. Learn more about the full season here!...

Erwin Schrott has withdrawn from the performances of Faust on 2, 6 and 10 June for personal reasons. The role of Méphistophélès will be performed on these dates by Ildebrando D'Arcangelo. Schrott will continue to sing the role on 23, 25, 28 and 30 May.   ...

The chorus of the Welsh National Opera have voted unanimously to take further action short of strike on Thursday 27 February and Saturday 1 March, affecting shows on these dates....

Welsh National Opera has announced its 2025/2026 Season, which will also see the Company celebrate its 80th anniversary. WNO will visit Birmingham Hippodrome in May 2026 with a brand-new production of The Flying Dutchman (Thu 7 May 2026) and the return of Blaze of Glory! (Fri 8 May 2026)....