The Sound of Music continues at the Grand Theatre, Leeds until 1 August 2026. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ Nikolai Foster keeps the story moving briskly along while allowing the 20-odd songs sufficient breathing space.
Tag Archives | Opera North
My Fair Lady – Leeds Playhouse
My Fair Lady continues at Leeds Playhouse until 29 June 2024. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Eliza herself (Katie Bird) has one of those thrilling soprano voices that sets the spine tingling. At the same time, she can bring out the pathos in ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?’.
A Little Night Music – Leeds Playhouse
A Little Night Music continues at Leeds Playhouse until 16 July 2022. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ What an extraordinarily generous composer Stephen Sondheim was. A little Night Music gives substantial singing roles to the young and the old, the aristocrat and the servant, the dolt and the susceptible. As the evening […]
Leeds return for Playhouse and Opera North hit co-production of A Little Night Music
Leeds Playhouse and Opera North’s acclaimed production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s evocative A Little Night Music will play an encore run in Leeds this summer. Directed by the Playhouse’s artistic director James Brining, the director of Leeds Playhouse and Opera North’s celebrated 2016 production of Sondheim’s Into the Woods, A Little Night Music […]
Drag artist Divina De Campo to star in Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Leeds Playhouse
Divina De Campo will take centre stage in a major new production of the Tony Award-winning Hedwig and the Angry Inch as part of the Leeds Playhouse’s spring/summer 2022 season. The star of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK who made her musical theatre debut as Mary Sunshine in the current UK touring production of Chicago, will […]
A Little Night Music – Leeds Playhouse
A Little Night Music continues at Leeds Playhouse until 17 July 2021. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ For my first visit to Leeds Playhouse in many months I knew I was in safe hands with a joint production from the venue and Opera North, the ever reliable James Brining in the director’s chair. […]
Opera North launches community songwriting project
Opera North has unveiled a free community songwriting project as part of plans to create an innovative arts installation at the company’s redeveloped home in Leeds which is due to open as the Howard Opera Centre later this year. Launching online from 22 February the six-week course of free Writing Home workshops will invite participants […]
Seven Deadly Sins – Opera North at Leeds Playhouse
Seven Deadly Sins was live-streamed by Opera North from Leeds Playhouse. The Seven Deadly Sins (1933) was Kurt Weill’s last collaboration with Bertolt Brecht. Hitler had come to power the previous year and Weill was Jewish. As soon as possible, he left for America. Brecht saw the potential for the two Annas to be different […]
Opera North to stream Trouble in Tahiti
Opera North will stream its well-received production of Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti free of charge on 6 May 2020 at 7pm on Opera North’s YouTube channel. Originally commissioned by The Space, and recorded live at Leeds Grand Theatre in October 2017, the film which is directed by Ross MacGibbon will remain available on demand […]
Street Scene – Grand Theatre, Leeds & Touring
Street Scene, presented by Opera North at the Grand Theatre, Leeds and Touring until 20 March 2020. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Kurt Weill originally conceived Street Scene as a piece that would integrate grand opera with Broadway, using a number of musical styles. Sadly, the resulting hybrid fails to hit this ambitious […]
Renée Fleming and Dove Cameron head cast of London premiere of The Light in the Piazza
Opera superstar Renée Fleming and Disney TV star Dove Cameron will make their London theatre debuts next summer in a special production of Tony Award-winning The Light in the Piazza. The first production from Scenario Two, the new company founded by John Berry and Anthony Lilley, The Light in the Piazza will make its London […]
Kiss Me, Kate – Grand Theatre, Leeds and Touring
Kiss Me, Kate at the Grand Theatre, Leeds. The Opera North production plays four performances at the Alighieri Theatre in Ravenna, Italy before returning to the UK to play the London Coliseum from 20-30 June 2018. The show will then head for the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh from 4-7 July. Star rating: five stars ★★★★★ Reviewing Opera […]
Cast for Opera North’s Kiss Me, Kate return
Casting has been announced for the return of Opera North’s award-winning production of Cole Porter’s classic Kiss Me, Kate, which is due to open at Leeds Grand Theatre in May ahead of UK touring dates. Opera North’s production of Porter’s Golden Age musical version of the Bard’s The Taming of the Shrew, will once again […]
Opera North’s Kiss Me, Kate to play London Coliseum in 2018
Opera North’s award-winning production of Cole Porter’s classic Kiss Me, Kate will make its debut in the capital at the London Coliseum in June next year. Bringing together top talent from the worlds of opera and the West End stage, and featuring the full-scale orchestra and chorus of Opera North, the London run of the […]
Kiss Me, Kate set for Shakespeare-inspired WNO autumn season
Cole Porter’s classic Kiss Me, Kate will be part of a celebratory Shakespeare-inspired autumn season from the Welsh National Opera. A co-production with Opera North, Porter’s Golden Age musical version of the Bard’s The Taming of the Shrew will feature operatic and West End singers alongside the renowned WNO Chorus and Orchestra. Directed by Jo Davies, […]
Into the Woods – West Yorkshire Playhouse
Into the Woods continues at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds until 25 June. Rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ West Yorkshire Playhouse and Opera North have chosen the perfect vehicle for a co-production in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s fairytale mash-up. Casting entirely from within the Chorus of Opera North gives artistic director James […]
Into the Woods – West Yorkshire Playhouse and Opera North collaborate
A major artistic collaboration between West Yorkshire Playhouse and Opera North comes to fruition this June as Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods opens in Leeds. Bringing together two of Leeds’ key arts organisations for their first ever large scale co-production, it is directed by West Yorkshire Playhouse artistic director James Brining and performed […]
Kiss Me, Kate – Grand Theatre, Leeds
Kiss Me, Kate continues at the Grand Theatre, Leeds until 31 October before touring to Theatre Royal Newcastle, The Lowry Salford Quays and Theatre Royal Nottingham. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ So, the next step in Opera North’s journey through the Golden Age of Musicals brings us to Cole Porter. There is little doubt that this is […]
Kiss Me, Kate – new production to tour from September
A new production of Kiss Me, Kate, presented by Opera North with Welsh National Opera, is set to heat up stages across England from September. Cole Porter’s classic musical comedy opens at Leeds Grand Theatre on 21 September, before touring to Theatre Royal Newcastle, The Lowry Salford Quays and Theatre Royal Nottingham. The show will be performed by a […]
Carousel – Opera North – Grand Theatre, Leeds and Touring
Carousel, an Opera North production, continues at the Grand Theatre, Leeds until 23 May, and then tours to Norwich, Edinburgh and Dublin. Star rating: 5 stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Music can conjure up some strange associations. ‘The Carousel Waltz’, for example, the eccentric overture to this show, immediately takes me back to the 1960s and the Sunday afternoon radio programme ‘Movie-Go-Round’. […]
