1 2017 SEASON 2 Eugene Onegin, 2016 Absolutely everything was perfection. You have a winning formula Audience member, 2016 1 2 SEMELE George Frideric Handel LE NOZZE DI FIGARO Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE Claude Debussy IL TURCO IN ITALIA Gioachino Rossini SILVER BIRCH Roxanna Panufnik Idomeneo, 2016 Garsington OPERA at WORMSLEY 3 2017 promises to be a groundbreaking season in the 28 year history of Cohen, making his Garsington debut, and directed by Annilese Miskimmon, Garsington Opera. Artistic Director of Norwegian National Opera, who we welcome back nine years after her Il re pastore at Garsington Manor. We will be expanding to four opera productions for the very first time and we will now have two resident orchestras as the Philharmonia Orchestra joins us for Our fourth production will be a revival from 2011 of Rossini’s popular comedy, Pelléas et Mélisande. Il turco in Italia. We are delighted to welcome back David Parry, who brings his conducting expertise to his 13th production for us, and director Martin Duncan Our own highly praised Garsington Opera Orchestra will not only perform Le who returns for his 6th season. nozze di Figaro, Il turco in Italia and Semele, but will also perform the world premiere of Roxanna Panufnik’s Silver Birch at the conclusion of the season. To cap the season off we are very proud to present a brand new work commissioned by Garsington from composer Roxanna Panufnik, to be directed Pelléas et Mélisande, Debussy’s only opera and one of the seminal works by our Creative Director of Learning & Participation, Karen Gillingham, and I of the 20th century, will be conducted by Jac van Steen, who brought such will conduct. Silver Birch will involve a core of professional singers, a youth and illumination and musicianship to our Intermezzo production of 2015. It will be adult community chorus, young soloists and instrumentalists who will have the directed by Michael Boyd and designed by Tom Piper, who return following last fantastic experience of playing alongside our professional orchestra players. The season’s inspiring production of Eugene Onegin. libretto, by Jessica Duchen, is an emotional and uplifting story of a family whose I will conduct a re-creation of John Cox’s Le nozze di Figaro, last performed lives are changed by war. during the final year at Garsington Manor. I am thrilled to be joining forces once Do join us in 2017, when I hope you will continue to be moved and exhilarated again with both John and designer Robert Perdziola to bring their much admired as we strive for the highest artistic standards, energy and commitment in our production to the Wormsley stage. English idyll. Handel has never been performed at Garsington Opera so we are putting that right in 2017! Semele will be conducted by early music visionary Jonathan Douglas Boyd, Artistic Director Semele George Frideric Handel 5 love story with a twist; the god Jupiter is captivated by the beauty of the all-too-human Semele Heidi Stober A Semele. Inspired by the dramatic and colourful mythological characters, Handel’s music is Jupiter Robert Murray powerfully seductive. Jupiter entrances Semele by promising that ‘Where e’er you walk’ he will Juno Christine Rice arrange for trees to provide welcome shade, and that at her every step, flowers will blossom into Cadmus & Somnus David Soar life. She exults, with unabashed sensual delight, in everything that Jupiter has to offer, singing Athamas Christopher Ainslie triumphantly of ‘Endless pleasure, endless love’. In this parable of over-ambition and over- Iris Llio Evans indulgence Semele flirts with danger by demanding immortality and suffers the consequences, leaving behind her one life-enhancing legacy – her son, Bacchus, god of wine. Conductor Jonathan Cohen Director Annilese Miskimmon Composed in 1744, Semele features some of Handel’s most exquisitely beautiful music, with soaring Designer Nicky Shaw choruses and splendid orchestral writing enhancing this most touching and humorous opera. Lighting Designer Mark Jonathan Annilese Miskimmon, Artistic Director of Norwegian National Opera, will direct, with Jonathan Cohen making his Garsington Opera conducting debut. Heidi Stober and Robert Murray make Garsington Opera Orchestra & Chorus their role debuts as Semele and Jupiter with the renowned Christine Rice returning to Garsington to sing Juno. Sung in English with supertitles Performances Pre-performance Talk 1, 3, 9, 15, 24, 30 June & 4 July Saturday 3 June, 4.30pm Start time 5.55pm LE NOZZE DI FIGARO Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 7 Figaro Joshua Bloom t is the wedding day of Figaro and Susanna, but will their marriage ceremony ever take place? Susanna Jennifer France During the course of a crazy day a series of confusing events unfolds. Count Almaviva has lost I Count Duncan Rock interest in his wife and is intent on seducing Susanna. She and Figaro conspire with the Countess to Countess Kirsten MacKinnon outwit him and to teach him a lesson in fidelity but his young page, Cherubino, inadvertently upsets Cherubino Marta Fontanals- the carefully laid plans, and relationships are severely tested. All of this is brought to life by Mozart’s Simmons music of consummate grace, wit and joyous invention, with Da Ponte’s sparklingly adroit libretto. Bartolo Stephen Richardson This recreation of John Cox’s much admired 2005 production will be conducted by Garsington Marcellina Janis Kelly Opera’s Artistic Director, Douglas Boyd, and designer Robert Perdziola will adapt his elegant Basilio Timothy Robinson 18th century designs for the Wormsley stage. The cast includes Joshua Bloom (Leporello, Don Curzio Alun Rhys-Jenkins Giovanni, 2012) as Figaro and Jennifer France (Marzelline in Fidelio, 2014) as Susanna, with the award-winning baritone Duncan Rock making his Garsington debut as the Count. Conductor Douglas Boyd Director John Cox Associate Director Bruno Ravella Designer Robert Perdziola Performances Pre-performance Talk Lighting Designer Mark Jonathan 2, 4, 8, 10, 17 June & 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 16 July Sunday 4 June, 4pm Start time 5.25pm Garsington Opera Orchestra & Chorus Sung in Italian with English supertitles Left: Le nozze di Figaro, 2010 Pelléas et Mélisande Claude Debussy 9 rince Golaud finds a mysterious young woman in the forest and makes her his wife. Returning Pelléas Jonathan McGovern P with her to his kingdom of shadows and secrets, a dangerous love triangle emerges as she Mélisande Andrea Carroll grows perilously close to his brother, Pelléas. Golaud Paul Gay Arkel Brian Bannatyne- The only opera completed by Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande evokes a claustrophobic environment in Scott which a world beyond hardly exists. It is shot through with shimmering beauty and iridescent colours, Geneviève Susan Bickley creating an opera of intense hypnotic allure. Michael Boyd and Tom Piper (director and designer of Eugene Onegin, 2016) return with Jac van Conductor Jac van Steen Steen (Intermezzo, 2015), who conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in its Garsington debut. Director Michael Boyd Jonathan McGovern and Andrea Carroll make their Garsington debuts in the title roles. Designer Tom Piper Lighting Designer Malcolm Rippeth Performances Pre-performance Talk 16, 18, 22, 25, 27 June & 1, 7 July Sunday 18 June, 4.30pm Philharmonia Orchestra & Garsington Start time 5.55pm Opera Chorus Sung in French with English supertitles IL TURCO IN ITALIA Gioachino Rossini 11 rosdocimo, a toiling poet searching for inspiration, finds his muse in the flirtatious Fiorilla, Fiorilla Sarah Tynan Pan advocate of free and unfettered love, and her devoted husband Geronio, who is more Narciso Luciano Botelho interested in fidelity and a quiet life. When a dashing Turkish stranger is added to the mix, the Zaida Katie Bray stage is set for a comedy with a deliciously layered plot full of games that go wrong and lessons to Selim Quirijn de Lang be learned. With a glittering musical score and wittily observed characters, this complex and subtle Don Geronio Geoffrey Dolton farce tells a tale of unrequited love and confused identities. Prosdocimo Mark Stone Martin Duncan’s joyous 2011 production returns to Garsington, conducted by Rossini expert David Conductor David Parry Parry. Returning artists include Sarah Tynan (The Creation, 2016), Luciano Botelho, Quirijn de Director Martin Duncan Lang and Katie Bray (L’italiana in Algeri, 2016) and Mark Stone (Robert Storch, Intermezzo, 2015). Designer Francis O’Connor Lighting Designer Mark Jonathan Performances Pre-performance Talk Movement Director Nick Winston 26, 29 June & 2, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15 July Thursday 29 June, 4.30pm Start time 5.55pm Garsington Opera Orchestra & Chorus Sung in Italian with English supertitles Left: Il turco in Italia, 2011 SILVER BIRCH Roxanna Panufnik 13 his exciting new commission from leading UK composer, Roxanna Panufnik, with a libretto from Jack Sam Furness T writer Jessica Duchen, is a celebration of music, drama, poetry and dance and brings together Anna Victoria Simmonds professional singers with 180 members of the local community. Designed to appeal to everyone from Simon Darren Jeffery age 8 upwards, Karen Gillingham, Creative Director of Garsington Opera’s Learning & Participation Siegfried Sassoon Bradley Travis programme, will direct and Douglas Boyd will conduct. Mrs Morrell Sarah Redgwick Davey James Way Inspired by the timeless themes of war and relationships affected by it, the opera draws upon Siegfried Sassoon’s poems and the testimony of a British soldier, who served recently in Iraq, to illustrate the Conductor Douglas Boyd human tragedies of conflicts past and present. Director Karen Gillingham Jack joins the army to silence his father’s taunts for his love of poetry. Joined by his brother Davey, their Designer Rhiannon Newman Brown devastating experiences turn the whole family’s world upside down. Supported by the power of their Composer Roxanna Panufnik mother’s love as she tries to hold the family together they, like Sassoon himself, seek to help those Librettist Jessica Duchen whose suffering they share.