We're delighted to announce our return to live performance from October with a national autumn tour of Handel's Amadigi, nearly a full year since our last performances in November 2020. We've been busy in the meantime bringing you productions online, including our Lyric Solitudes season on Marquee TV and our ongoing digital season on ETO at Home, but we're very excited to be on the road once again and we are confident that our Autumn 2021 tour will prove a joyous occasion.

Handel’s rarely-performed 1715 “Magic Opera” is based on the landmark medieval epic Amadis de Gaula, which explores the powerlessness of young people in the face of all-consuming, youthful love. It was written by Handel during his stay at Burlington House, and its splendid music hints at material later used in such works as his Water Music and the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. Our new production is led by director James Conway and conductor Jonathan Peter Kenny, the team responsible for ETO’s celebrated Handel productions Giulio Cesare (2017, 2020), Xerxes (2016) and 2009’s Handelfest (a hugely successful and unprecedented undertaking of performing five different Handel opera over five consecutive nights).

Rehearsals for the production are already underway, and from Friday 16 April ETO are releasing a series of filmed Amadigi arias captured during sessions at the atmospheric Stone Nest in London’s West End. Featuring several singers featuring in the tour as well as musical accompaniment from the Old Street Band, this week-long Focus on Amadigi series will give audiences a taste of the music they will hear in theatres this autumn.

ETO’s digital series Focus on Amadigi is available on demand for free on ETO at Home from Friday 16 April. Full details can be found here.