Royal Opera House welcomes back audiences for live performances

This article originally appeared in Opera Now magazine.

The Royal Opera’s first full-scale performance of opera since lockdown began in March 2020 will be Mozart’s  La clemenza di Tito, in a new production directed by Richard Jones, designed by Ultz, and under the baton of Mark Wigglesworth.

The ROH has also announced the re-opening of the world’s first opera in hyper-reality. Current, Rising is a collaboration between the Royal Opera House’s innovation programme, Audience Labs, award-winning Figment Productions and Royal Holloway, University of London. The work is described by the ROH as ‘a 15-minute hyper-reality opera experience that combines virtual reality with a multisensory set, inviting audiences to step into a bespoke “Opera Tardis” and experience a dream-like journey carried musically by a poem layered in song’.

Immersive hyperreality in Current, Rising

Booking for these public events opens on 13 April, which is also when casting and calendar schedules will be announced.  In the meantime, the Royal Opera  will be live streaming its first fully staged production since lockdown, featuring a new double bill of Bertolt Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s, The Seven Deadly Sins and Mahagonny Songspiel. Directed by British director Isabelle Kettle, soloists of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme will perform Weill’s satirical operas under the baton of British-Cypriot conductor Michael Papadopoulos, along with choreography from Julia Cheng. The full cast list will be announced on 29 March.