Pleasure premieres in 2016

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Mark Simpson's first opera Pleasure will be premiering in Leeds in 2016. A co-production between Opera North, Aldeburgh Music and the Royal Opera, Pleasure starts off in Leeds in April 2016, before moving to the Liverpool Playhouse, Snape Maltings and the Lyric Hamersmith in May 2016.  The opera features Lesley Garrett as a toilet attendant in a gay club in the North of England, a Bacchanalian drag queen and a mysterious young man. Aren't you curious already?

Mark Simpson is collaborating with writer Melanie Challenger on the piece, and it will be directed by Tim Albery with designs by Leslie Travers. Nicholas Kok will conduct the Manchester-based ensemble Psappha. Pleasure is the fourth new opera commissioned and produced as part of a three-year partnership between Aldeburgh Music, The Royal Opera and Opera North, designed to boost opportunities for emerging opera writers, and bring new work to audiences across the UK.

Previous operas commissioned as part of the partnership include two first operas, Café Kafka (by Francisco Coli and Meredith Oakes) and The Commission (by Elspeth Brooke and Jack Underwood) and a new opera by Matt Rogers and writer Sally O’Reilly, The Virtues of Things, which premieres in the Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House, on 2 May 2015.