This is a comedy with zest, cream, and an Italian accent – think zabaglione! – in a new production directed by William Oldroyd with Dominic Wheeler conducting.

Keel Watson plays Don Pasquale, a stubborn, competitive, old batchelor – and here a tyrannic orchestra conductor – who wants to procure a young wife. He seems set to steal from his nephew a beautiful, and apparently submissive bride – but his clumsy wooing turns to painful woe when she reveals her own mind.

Photograph: Don Pasquale as a tyrannic orchestra conductor. Thanks to The Philadelphia Orchestra Association Archives.

Video preview: Thanks to Chandos Records for use of their Don Pasquale recording.

(Running time approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes, including a 20 minute interval between Acts II and III)

The plot (based on Beaumarchais’ controversial play) traces the intrigues of one day at the house of Count Almaviva. Figaro is to marry Susanna, (a maid, but also a ‘favourite’ of the Count – and opera’s most charming heroine, here played by Eliana Praetorian and Claire Ormshaw), but he must overcome every obstacle put in his way by the Count and his cronies, before he can be united finally with his bride.

The Marriage of Figaro is sold out in Exeter, Snape and Poole.

Video preview: Thanks to Chandos Records for use of their Marriage of Figaro recording.

(Running time approximately 3 hours, including a 15 minute interval between Acts II and III)

‘The Starry Welkin’ is set in the magic forest of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, and follows the entwined story of Oberon, Titania and Bottom as they struggle through the strangest of moonlit nights. Written for children aged 4-7 the piece is a perfect introduction to some key instruments of the orchestra, to opera and to Shakespeare. New music by Kate Pearson and design by Louise Ann Wilson will immerse the children in the sensual and comic world of Dream, with a little help from a puppet Puck. The piece lasts one hour and is both very accessible and fully interactive. Please contact Alexa Hills at ETO if you are interested.

Some public performances can only be booked by telephone:
Cheltenham box office: 01242 572573
Belfast box office: 028 9024 1919

The Starry Welkin is sold out in Exeter

The Starry Welkin tours from March to May 2010 to schools and venues in London, Exeter, Truro, Poole, Sheffield, Cheltenham, Belfast, Wolverhampton, Snape, Warwick, Perth and Cambridge.

ETO has worked with special schools across the country for many years. The Midnight Moon is a workshop based on the story and music of Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and looks in particular at the story of the fairies. Fully designed it is intended to engage with children with profound learning difficulties and special needs, including children who are on the severe end of the autistic spectrum. An ETO team consisting of 2 singer-actors, 2 players and a director (all from the cast, orchestra and production team of the show) will explore the magical world of Dream in many delightful, multi-sensory ways. Participants will hear, see, touch and smell the world of an enchanted forest, and will take part in magical transformations. The workshop will include some level of participation, depending on the needs of the students involved.

ETO’s outreach department, nominated for 2 RPS awards in the last 2 years, is renowned for the quality, variety and depth of its work: creative workshops, community opera, commissioned new operas for young people, residencies in special schools, are all part of our ongoing commitment to work in and with communities across the UK.

First produced in 2004, ETO’s hugely successful production of the Britten/Shakespeare masterpiece returns. In a fairy-haunted wood, lovers’ knots are tangled, and strange dreams create monstrous romances. Only in an hilarious play performed by working men are all the opera’s tensions and enchantments eased. Michael Rosewell conduct’s Britten’s eerie, highly theatrical score, with a cast led by Jonathan Peter Kenny and Andrew Slater.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is sold out in Exeter and Snape.

(Running time approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes, including a 20 minute interval between acts II and III. There will be a short pause between acts I and II.)

Turtle Song is an opportunity for people with Alzheimer’s or dementia and their companions (husbands / wives / carers) to sing and compose their own songs with professional musicians. The group meets once a week over 10 weeks. The aims are to enjoy singing together, to write a song cycle, to record the songs on CD and to give the brain and the body a bit of stimulating exercise. The sessions are led by an experienced creative team supported by 6 students from the Royal College of Music.

The next project begins in January 2010 and you are most welcome to join us. Please email your details to the Education department and we will be in touch.

The last project resulted in a song-cycle called A Picture in a Frame, which was performed at the Royal College of Music in March. The story, devised by the group, was based on a meeting with a an actress called Dorothy Ellen Gracia.

Turtle Song was piloted with the ‘Singing for the Brain’ group run by the West Berkshire Alzheimer’s Society.

‘The achievement of creating something entirely new was a thrill and a source pride for the participants. It was a stimulating workout for the brain. The continuous engagement of the group in novel work was delightful to see. The opportunity to create and to give something to others is so enabling’. Chreanne Montgomery-Smith, Support and Development Officer Alzheimer’s Society West Berkshire

Turtle Song is free to all participants and their carers.
There are DVDs available of the two projects run in 2007/8 and 2008/9.

We are collaborating once more with the National Portrait Gallery in the delivery of a series of inspiring and creative workshops for children from primary schools and secondary schools. Pictures in the collection serve as starting-points for new composition. The children (typically one class at a time) arrive at the Gallery in the morning, and are taken to one of the gallery spaces, where they are introduced to one (or more in the case of a group portrait) historical or contemporary portrait. The image then becomes the starting-point for instant music-theatre composition, the pupils working with professional musicians in a workshop space. In the afternoon the children return to the portrait in the main Gallery where they perform their composition in public.

The workshop is suitable for all key stage classes and last a full day. Last year the workshops ran during the last week of September and were led by leading musician and animateur Paul Griffiths.

We work also with older students at the NPG, often supporting the National Creative and Media Diploma. Picture This was a very successful project in 2008, working with students from Plumstead Manor School in Greenwich. Workshops took place in the Gallery and also in school, and to performances at the NPG (both in a Gallery space and also in the Lecture Theatre) and at Tate Modern. There was also a studio recording of the music (with composer Russell Hepplewhite) and a DVD of the final piece. Both are available on request.

A new production (after hundreds of years) of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Duenna, a play with songs composed by the Linleys of Bath, depicting the scandalous elopement of the lusty Irish playwright with Elizabeth Linley, a celebrated singer and society beauty. This opera, the most popular of the Georgian period – making the fortunes of the Covent Garden theatre – is tuneful, sabre-tongued, light-hearted and irreverent, the jewel of Georgian England.

Support The Duenna
If you would like a personal connection with a production and a special insight into the staging process, ETO’s production syndicate is the perfect way to become involved. Our next syndicate is in support of The Duenna. Join our Autumn 2010 production syndicate and become part of very special British Season.

English Touring Opera gives the premiere performances of Promised End, by Alexander Goehr, setting one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, King Lear. One of the UK’s most respected composers, Goehr collaborated with scholar Frank Kermode on editing Shakespeare. He has created a new piece of lyric theatre which is profound and inspiring.

Photographs of Alexander Goehr by devondigital.co.uk