The Barbican and its resident band the London Symphony Orchestra have a promising season scheduled, with the charismatic Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan leading the artistic line-up. Her performances start on the rostrum with an evocation of 30s New York and Paris through music written for the stage by Copland, Rosenthal and Kurt Weill, then she gives two performances of Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, which deals with love, jealousy and suicide.
From 17 Feb, Barbican, London
With its gut-wrenching emotional sweep, Leoš Janáček’s small-town tragedy returns in Katie Mitchell’s acclaimed staging. Soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn, currently very much in the ascendant, sings the title role, with Peter Berger and Peter Auty as her competing lovers. After opening in Cardiff, the show tours to Bristol and five other cities.
5-18 Mar, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, then touring to 10 May
Director Deborah Warner’s Billy Budd was infused with a desolate tenderness, so there are high expectations for her production of Britten’s other nautical tragedy. The cast is led by heavy hitters Allan Clayton, Bryn Terfel, Jacques Imbrailo and the great John Tomlinson.
17-31 Mar, Royal Opera House, London
Founded by Benjamin Britten in 1948, this annual jamboree on the windswept Suffolk coast has always been famed for new music. This year’s festival offers a feast of premieres, and an impressive cast of performers led by Nicola Benedetti, but its USP lies in the way its audiences are induced to participate.
3 to 26 Jun
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This festival takes place in the fishing coast of Fife in “found” venues including village churches, a barn and picturesque open-air locations. The programme includes top-rank pianists such as Elisabeth Leonskaja, Pavel Kolesnikov and Boris Giltburg, plus the excellent Elias and Pavel Haas Quartets.
29 Jun-3 Jul
No better place than Glyndebourne to see this Baroque masterpiece that takes place on an enchanted isle, since Glyndebourne is an enchanted isle itself. Handel’s madly complicated tale of interlocking jealousies, disguises and deceptions will bring a superb cast led by coloratura soprano Jane Archibald in the title role.
2 Jul-24 August, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
