Programme announced for 2022 Leeds Opera Festival

Leeds Opera Festival to stage rare production of Handel’s ‘Silla’ this August

Northern Opera Group have announced plans for this year’s Leeds Opera Festival.

Themed around the idea of POWER, the headline production of the Festival is Handel’s ‘Silla’. The story of the Roman Emperor Lucio Silla, the opera is a tale of political and patriarchal power with startling contemporary relevance to powerful figures on both sides of the Atlantic.

The production’s all female creative team includes director Laura Attridge, conductor Ellie Slorach, designer April Dalton, with movement by Christina Fulcher. The cast includes Idunnu Münch, Lucy Hall, Isabelle Peters, Alison Rose, Francesca Gregory, Stephanie Hershaw, and Trevor Elliot Bowes. It will be performed in a new English translation by Martin Pickard and accompanied by the Eboracum Baroque orchestra. Meet our cast here.

Performances will take place at the stunning state-of-the-art Leeds School of Arts building. This new £80m performing arts centre hosts Leeds Beckett University’s creative programmes, with this being the first time that public audiences will be able to visit the theatre. The building has recently been nominated as ‘Building of the Year’ by the Architects’ Journal.

Other events include

• A new touring opera, co-written by composer Christella Litras, writer Mike Kenny, and young people from the New Wortley area of Leeds. Inspired by the young people’s interpretation of the idea of POWER, a free pop-up tour of performances will visit 12 venues in Leeds during the Festival
• A free audio guide to works from the Leeds Art Gallery collection that reflect the Festival’s theme of POWER. Created by Northern Opera Group’s Artistic Director, Leeds Art Gallery curators, and volunteers from the Gallery
• A Film, Food and Opera event at HEART Centre, with live performances of Handel opera arias and a screening of the Handel biopic ‘God Rot Tunbridge Wells’
• An arts and climate symposium at Chapel FM, bringing together creatives from the city to discuss ways to make new work in a more environmentally sustainable way

This will be the sixth annual edition of the Festival which takes place in venues right across the city, enabling people of all ages to attend performances and get involved.

Tickets are now on-sale from northernoperagroup.co.uk