ROH Autumn Season goes on sale!
The weather is getting hotter, ties are being loosened, hem lines are rising, roller banners are being hung in Covent Garden and the minds of art lovers everywhere turn to thoughts of the Autumn season at the The Royal Opera House. Yes, we are barely into the start of a scorching summer but this week is one of the most exciting in the calendar for music lovers as the Autumn season goes on sale at the ROH.
The current season at Covent Garden is proving to be a storming success. The highlight of the season is the return of the legendary tenor Placido Domingo to the Opera House, and for the first time in the United Kingdom he is singing baritone! The tickets for the opera in question, Simon Boccanegra, sold out with lightning rapidity and this helped the whole season to sell in ‘molto allegro’ fashion! On the day that the tickets went on sale the queues at the online box office were over a thousand strong throughout the day. My advice to opera lovers therefore is to book online with the Royal Opera House website now if you want to see any of their forthcoming productions.
The Autumn programme has been put together with their customary expertise and offers something for everyone. Opera newcomers will be enthralled by the bawdy, boisterous brilliance of Verdi’s Rigoletto and enchanted by the musical virtuosity and sheer vivre of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. For seasoned opera buffs there are productions of operas rarely seen in this country, the highlight of which to my mind is a spectacular new production of Niobe, Regina Di Tebe by the early Italian composer Agostino Steffani.
The Opera House has emphasised its commitment to making opera an activity that all the family can enjoy with a Christmas ‘pantomime’ production of Humperdinck’s Hansel And Gretel, the perfect antidote to the bland Christmas specials on mainstream television. There really is something for everybody, if you haven’t seen live opera before then prepare to be amazed but please heed my advice – book early!