The 2012-13 season at English National Opera, announced yesterday, will feature premieres from Philip Glass and Michel van der Aa, and rarities including the first professional staging of Vaughan Williams’ The Pilgrim’s Progress since 1951.

‘Contemporary opera is now at the core of what we do’ says artistic director, John Berry, announcing a season which features two major premieres: Philip Glass’s The Perfect American (a UK premiere) and Michel van der Aa’s Sunken Garden. Glass’s 24th opera is about Walt Disney, based on a partly fictionalised account of the final years of Disney’s life. Berry warned audiences that the production will offer a darker, ‘nightmarish’ vision of the iconic figure. British baritone Christopher Purves will play the movie tycoon, alongside soprano Janis Kelly in the role of Disney’s studio nurse. The libretto also features Abraham Lincoln and Andy Warhol among its characters.

Sunken Garden, from Dutch composer/director Michel van der Aa and Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell, is described by ENO as an ‘occult-mystery film opera’. An ENO co-commission, the production will integrate 3D film (its first usage in live opera), with 2D film and live performance. Following its world premiere at the Barbican (as opposed to at ENO’s Coliseum home), the production will transfer to venues and events including the Luminato Festival, Toronto, Opéra de Lyon, and the Holland Festival. 

 

The season also includes productions of works less often seen on the operatic stage, embracing 17th century Christian allegory, Greek Tragedy and the Surrealist Movement of the 1930s. Vaughan Williams’ The Pilgrim’s Progress, directed by Yoshi Oïda hasn’t had a fully staged professional production since its 1951 premiere. There will also be a revised staging of Martinů’s Julietta, directed by Richard Jones, and the first ever UK staging of Charpentier’s Medea, directed by David McVicar – ENO’s only baroque opera this season.

Two major composer anniversaries falling in 2013 will be celebrated: Verdi’s bicentenary and the centenary of Benjamin Britten. La Traviata (a co-production with Opera Graz) will be the UK’s first Verdi production of the season, whilst also marking the UK debut of its director, Peter Konwitschny. Marking Britten’s anniversary, ENO will open its 2012/13 season with a concert performance of Peter Grimes at the BBC Proms, and the end of the season will see a revival of ENO’s well-received Death in Venice, directed by Deborah Warner, with John Graham-Hall as Achenbach, and conducted by Edward Gardner.

In addition to Warner’s Death in Venice, other revivals include Nicholas Hytner's Magic Flute, Rufus Norris’s Don Giovanni, and from Jonathan Miller, The Mikado, Barber of Seville and La bohème. 


Katya Herman