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 All tickets in the house, whose 2,200 seats can go for as
much as 200 pounds ($330), will be priced from 1 pound to 25
pounds for the opening night on September 11 and will be sold
through the opera's student standby scheme and in conjunction
with a music venue that works with young people, the ROH said.
"I think it's fantastic to have a season opening gala which is
something that sounds stuffy and elitist to actually be a night
where we celebrate new work ... and is celebrated by selling the
whole house to students and young people," the ROH's
Director of Opera Kasper Holten told Reuters on Monday.
Music Director Antonio Pappano, whose contract the ROH announced
was being extended until at least the end of 2017, will conduct
English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage's opera based on the life
of the Playboy centerfold who married an oil billionaire.
Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek will reprise the title role
which she sang wearing a costume that featured prosthetic
breasts for the London premiere in 2011.
Holten said that with the extension of his contract the
English-born Pappano, who has been the music director of
Britain's premiere opera house for 12 seasons, "is soon becoming
one of the longest standing music directors of the Royal Opera
and certainly one of the most important and influential ones".
Among singers featured in the next season are German tenor Jonas
Kaufmann appearing as the poet hero of Giordano's "Andrea
Chenier", Swedish soprano Nina Stemme as Isolde in Wagner's
"Tristan und Isolde" and Russian soprano Anna Netrebko as Mimi
in Puccini's "La Boheme".
The Spanish singer Placido Domingo, a regular at Covent Garden,
will add another Verdi baritone role to his repertoire as Doge
Francesco Foscari in "I due Foscari".
One of the season highlights is the ROH's first production of
the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski's 20th-century masterpiece
"Krol Roger" (King Roger), a press statement said.
Another main house premiere is the ROH's first production of
Kurt Weill's "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny", first
performed in Germany in 1930 but banned by the Nazis from 1933.
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The smaller Linbury Studio Theatre will mount a world premiere of
American composer Philip Glass's "The Trial" based on the novel by
Franz Kafka and will stage a new work, "Glare" by the German-Danish
composer Soren Nils Eichberg.
SEVEN NEW PRODUCTIONS
All told, the main stage will offer seven new productions, with four
directors new to Covent Garden — Italy's Damiano Michieletto,
Katharina Thoma of Germany, Martin Kusej of Austria and American
Thaddeus Strassberger, plus new productions from Holten and
Britain's John Fulljames and David McVicar.
Other returning singers include Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, who
reprises his role as the Dutchman in Wagner's "Der fliegende
Hollander" while Domingo adds a second Verdi baritone role as
Giorgio Germont in "La Traviata".
British baritone Simon Keenlyside sings Verdi's "Rigoletto" for the
first time at Covent Garden, Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo takes on
the role of Nemorino in Donizetti's "L'elisir d'amore" and British
baritone Christopher Maltman will sing the title role of Mozart's
"Don Giovanni".
Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon will sing Don Ottavio in "Don
Giovanni", British tenor Toby Spence will sing Tamino from Mozart's
"Die Zauberflöte" and German soprano Dorothea Roschmann sings her
first Royal Opera Don Elvira ("Don Giovanni").
Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak sings Gilda in "Rigoletto" for the
first time with the ROH and Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka
sings Senta from "Der fliegende Hollander" for the first time at
Covent Garden.
The Royal Opera, which recently mounted a small production of the
17th-century Cavalli opera "L'Ormindo" at London's 320-seat Sam
Wanamaker Playhouse, said it would produce Monteverdi's 1607 opera "Orfeo"
at London's "The Roundhouse" music venue as part of its effort to
reach new audiences.
($1 = 0.5998 British pounds)
(Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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