English National Opera seeks ideas for its role in NW
English National Opera has announced more about its partnership projects in Greater Manchester. The company is moving towards making a home for itself in the region from 2029.
Company bosses have also offered information about Einstein on the Beach, Philip Glass’s 1976 opera, which will be directed by Phelim McDermott at Aviva Studios in Manchester next year.
One project will be Tuning into Opera, a research and engagement initiative with the University of Manchester, about what it could mean to the city to have a "national opera company based in Greater Manchester”. This is already running, but is to be completed next year and is looking to local communities, artists and audiences for ideas. In addition, the names of 10 members of The Artists’ Table, a North West-based panel intended to help shape ENO’s work in the region, have been revealed.
Since ENO has not yet explained what its new home in Greater Manchester - first announced in 2023 - might actually look like, completion of these details will undoubtedly be welcomed.
Meanwhile, various already-announced plans have been sketched in greater detail. Its Greater Manchester Youth Opera (for 11 to 14-year-olds), in partnership with the Royal Northern College of Music and the Greater Manchester and Blackburn with Darwen Music Hub, has completed a pilot with 30 young people and will be looking for more participants for 2027.
A partnership between ENO and Factory International - Opera Factory GM - launched earlier this year, aims to create a shared innovation and production pipeline for new work, by supporting artist-led experimentation. Its “Creative Incubator” with the RNCM, designed to provide opportunities for North West-based creatives to make original work, has its inaugural three participants - screenwriter Stefanie Reynolds, composer and musician Thandanani Gumeda, and dance artist Matthew Rawcliffe. In February part of the vast Aviva Studios complex in Manchester will be available for up to six days for an artist, collective or creative team to explore new approaches to opera, musical theatre, performance and storytelling.
ENO will also continue its schools programme, Finish This... in settings served by Manchester's Music Service, Bolton, Blackburn with Darwen, and Wigan music hubs and services. This will be in addition to similar hubs in Luton, Kent and the south coast. The company will also develop its Breathe programme, which supports people experiencing breathlessness and anxiety associated with long COVID, conditions such as COPD and asthma.
Other than that, the focus is on ENO’s one forthcoming regional production so far (and note it will offer 57 performances of eight productions in London). The sole northern opera will be Einstein on the Beach (see yesterday's announcement here), an “immersive” version of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s opera (Glass’s first), with design by Tom Pye, to be presented in collaboration with Factory International, theatre company Improbable and Park Avenue Armoury of New York. The director will be Improbable’s Manchester-born actor-turned-opera producer, Phelim McDermott.
First announced in 2024, Einstein on the Beach - produced in collaboration with the Chorus of ENO and Kantos Chamber Choir and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Brad Lubman - will run from May 29-June 12, 2027 at Aviva Studios and will include a “huge” cast of vocalists, instrumentalists, actors and movement artists, including performers from across Greater Manchester.
McDermott will be completing a “Glass portrait trilogy”, having directed the composer’s Satyagraha in 2007 and his Akhnaten in 2016 for ENO. He also collaborated with Philip Glass in person on the Manchester International Festival 2019 stage production of Tao of Glass, seen at the Royal Exchange Theatre (see our review here) and recently revived (but not with Glass in person) in London.
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