Stanford's Much Ado About Nothing at the Leeds Opera Festival

Northern Opera Group's annual festival, now re-named the Leeds Opera Festival, returns next month (23 to 27 August 2019) with Shakespeare as its theme, presenting events across the city with Charles Villiers Stanford's opera Much Ado About Nothing as the centrepiece.

Stanford's Much Ado About Nothing was his seventh opera, premiered at Covent Garden in 1901; it received a scant two performances and was given its German premiere in Leipzig in 1902. Since then there have been only rare revivals, at the Wexford Festival in 1964 and in London by Opera Viva in 1985 (a performance that I saw). Northern Opera Group is staging the work in Morley Town Hall with a cast including Charlotte Hoather, Catrin Woodruff and Phil Wilcox. The production is directed by Northern Opera Group’s Artistic Director, David Ward, and conducted by Christopher Pelly.

Other events at the festival include Musical Confusion a new music theatre piece about Shakespeare's plays and the operas based upon them, A Feast of Falstaff, a concert music from three Falstaff operas by Verdi, Salieri and Balfe, and a concert of music by Henry Bishop.

Full details from the Northern Opera Group website.