Royal Opera House 2009/10 season - all the details

Here first! - a full list of all the Royal Opera House's main stage productions for the 2009/10 season.

The 2009/10 Covent Garden season opens with neither bang nor whimper but with a credit-crunching concert performance on 7 September (repeated on 14 September). Makes a change from last year's Sun readers' special I suppose.

The opera in question is Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix, and the conductor is bel canto genius Mark Elder. The cast includes potential Next Big Things Stephen Costello, Eglise Gutierrez and Luciano Botelho, plus the incomparable Alessandro Corbelli, the first of several welcome appearances this season.

The first staged opera of the season is Nicholas Hytner's lego-loving Don Carlo, with - OMG!- Jonas Kaufmann !!! in the title role. John Tomlinson joins him as the Grand Inquisitor, and the rest of the cast is lifted straight from the first run - Marina Poplavskaya, Simon Keenlyside, fans' favourite Ferruccio Furlanetto, Sonia Ganassi and Pumeza Matshikiza.The conductor is Semyon Bychkov.

This season's contribution to the 2013 Wagnerversary is a new Christof Loy production of Tristan und Isolde. Antonio Pappano conducts Ben Heppner, Nina Stemme, Matti Salminen, Michael Volle and Sophie Koch.

Neigh! Francesco Zambello's ghastly Carmen returns in October, with the latest Covent Garden favourite Elina Garanca back for the title role, fighting off Roberto Alagna, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, and a farmyard full of furry friends. Bertrand de Billy conducts. It's resuscitated again in June 2010 with a distinctly 'B' cast.

October also sees one of Richard Jones's more subtle and effective efforts back on stage - and attractively cast. The shouldn't-work-but-it-does double bill of Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole (Christine Rice, Yann Beuron, Christopher Maltman, Andrew Shore and Bonaventura Bottone) and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi (Thomas Allen, Maria Bengtsson and Stephen Costello) is conducted by Pappano.

Francesco Zambello steps into Tchaikovsky's The Slippers in November. The new production will be conducted by Alexander Polianichko and features some serious talent fresh from the Mariinsky - Olga Guryakova, Vsevolod Grivnov, Larissa Diadkova, Vladimir Matorin and Maxim Mikhailov.

John Schlesinger's elderly Der Rosenkavalier is dusted off in December. Kirill Petrenko conducts and the cast includes Soile Isokoski, Sophie Koch, Thomas Allen and Lucy Crowe.

Littering the December and January schedules is the inevitable La Bohème. This time Andris Nelsons conducts most of the double-cast performances, which begin with Piotr Beczala and Hibla Gerzmava and end with not a few tbc's.

Robert Lepage's intermittently effective Rake's Progress returns in January 2010. Ingo Metzmacher, Toby Spence (a Tom Rakewell tdf), Kate Royal, Kyle Ketelsen and Stephanie Blythe promise much on the musical side.

Female conductor alert! Top Lisboan Julia Jones wields the baton over Jonathan Miller's Cosi fan Tutte in January. The cast includes Charles Castronovo and Sally Matthews.

A new Richard Jones production of Prokofiev's The Gambler in February is conducted by Pappano, with a cast including Roberto Sacca, Angela Denoke, John Tomlinson and Jurgita Adamonyte.

Plácido Domingo's first appearance of the season is as a tenor. Graham Vick's acclaimed production of Handel's Tamerlano (recorded in Madrid and available on DVD con Plácido) makes its first visit to Covent Garden in March with Christianne Stoijn, Sara Mingardo and Christine Schäfer. Baroque specialist Ivor Bolton conducts.

Bill Bryden's family-friendly The Cunning Little Vixen returns in March with Emma Matthews, Christopher Maltman and Emma Bell, though the presence of Charles Mackerras on the podium has to be the main draw.

Caurier and Leiser's lovely Il Turco in Italia is back in April, with Maurizio Benini conducting, and Aleksandra Kursak, Colin Lee, Alessandro Corbelli, Thomas Allen and Ildebrando d'Arcangelo in the cast.

Aida is subjected to the David McVicar magic in April. His new production is conducted by Nicola Luisotti and features Micaela Carosi, Marcelo Alvarez and Luciana D'Intino. Bare naked elephants?

The last of the Big Three, Richard Eyre's subtly intelligent La Traviata, makes its annual appearance in May and July. This time her name's in the programme - Our first Lady of the Camellias is the fabulous former Netrebko sub Ermonela Jaho. Joining her in her long-awaited return to Covent Garden in May are Saimir Pirgu and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. July's 'B' Violetta is Angela Gheorghiu, who makes do with James Valenti and Zeljko Lucic. Yves Abel conducts.

Laurent Pelly's now-legendary La Fille du Régiment returns in May with the unbeatable original cast of Juan Diego Flórez, Natalie Dessay, Alessandro Corbelli and Felicity Palmer back in place. Bruno Campanella conducts.

What would tempt Sir Colin Davis back into the pit? How about David McVicar's Le Nozze di Figaro? Erwin Schrott, Camilla Tilling, Maruisz Kwiecen. Annette Dasch, Soile Isokoski and Christine Schäfer head the strong cast.

Antonio Pappano conducts Laurent Pelly's new Manon, coming to Covent Garden in June with the announced cast including Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón. Anyone fancy a bet?

In one of those rare operatic fairy stories, June sees a baritone with less than a year's experience thrust into a leading role at Covent Garden. Yes, it's Plácido Domingo again, and this time he's Simon Boccanegra. Antonio Pappano conducts a strong cast including Marina Poplavskaya, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Joseph Calleja. It's the 1991 Elijah Moshinsky production by the way, not the Ian Judge one seen last year.

The season ends in July 2010 with the first revival of David McVicar's controversial Salome. Angela Denoke takes the central role, with Johan Reuter as Jokanaan. Hartmut Haenchen conducts.

No link yet, but more details expected on the Royal Opera House website sometime next week.

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*******UPDATE 22/4*******

The Royal Opera House's press releases are now available on their website. Go here for the summary, here for the opera details and here for the ballet.

Comments

[HairMan]

You're like a delinquent Father Christmas delivering presents before the big day...which is just fine by me!

Apart from the obvious sellers (Manon - I'll gamble every time to see this pairing!!....Traviata..La Fille...Carmen...etc...etc...) I'm interested in seeing the cast of "The Slippers" performing on these shores minus Gergiev as their leader...

[John]

Tristan is the must for me, but the only Wagner this Season, and none at all yet again at ENO. Maybe they are storing them all up for 2013.

[Marcus Furtwangler]

Thanks for the advance word!

I tend to get down to London from Glasgow a few times a year to catch ROH performances, and there's a few there that catch the eye - I'm especially looking forward to Tristan, and La Fille is another definite, having not seen it first time round.

[Gert]

Ha! Your post comes a lot earlier than mine, which arrived after 2pm!

[Paul]

The announcement is probably already on the ROH website, but, like everything else, very well hidden......

[James Flattery]

I too received the brochure from ROH. Was this meant to be sent out before the usual press conference which i undertsand to be Wednesday. Plus is the double runs of Carmen and Traviata a recession busting exercise?

[inter mezzo]

@James - the ROH are not particularly secretive about future productions (once all the contracts have been signed, that is). Many details have already appeared on artists' websites for example.

The 'Season Guide' book which contains all the info is a new venture for the ROH - in previous seasons the details were incorporated into their 'About the House' quarterly magazine instead - and I believe it has been widely distributed already.

There's not a huge amount of 'news' value in opera scheduling for the British press. I'm sure they don't minding waiting for the opportunity to copy and paste from the press release.

Double runs usually get scheduled when other plans fall through too late to start from scratch with a new replacement. I doubt if the ROH's Carmen is cheap to stage, even with a second-string cast, so I don't think it's necessarily pure economising. There had been strong rumours of an Adriana Lecouvreur with Jonas Kaufmann and La Donna del lago with JDF. It's possible the casting fell through and they weren't considered viable with less starry leads - who knows?

There are five brand-new productions - on a par with recent years - and only one of them is a surefire seller. But there's only one imported 'new' show, a lower number than previous years.

On balance, it looks as if the ROH may have planned for a more adventurous season than they were eventually able to deliver. But double runs aside, it doesn't look too bad, and at least there are fewer of the really creaky old fossilised productions than this season.

[John]

I think the Lecouvreur is due in 2010-2011 and La Donna del Lago is a joint production with La Scala.

[James Flattery]

I too thought that Lecouvruer was going to be this coming season having looked at Gheorghiu's website a few weeks ago. It now says Oct 2010. However there are still many operas of great quality. I cannot wait to see Furlanetto again in Don Carlo (plus he will be with Domingo in Boccanegra). Tristan is fantastically cast and many other great things. So I expect to be loitering in the old place a lot over the next year!

[Henry Holland]

Yikes, acres of Italian nonsense, a poorly thought out Ravel/Puccini double bill, Salome and the one interesting (to me) piece, The Gambler?!?! Oh well, no need to go to London this season, ENO isn't much better.

[Hariclea]

Season Guide??? does this get send out to all friends?

[Ed]

I see they have decided to throw out Wilson's Aida.. I was there to watch him receive his boos on the first night.. I didn't join in but it was close.

[HairMan]

Can anyone help me with a slight mystery that's come to my attention? In my Season Guide (very nice it is as well) Carmen is scheduled as beginning its run from the 6th of October, yet a friend noticed that on their press release the ROH had the run beginning from the 3rd – which being a Saturday would be ideal.

She contacted the ROH and they confirmed that there was a performance scheduled for the 3rd, but in their own words "the performance on the 3rd will not be available for general sale". Does anyone knows what this means? (I've got a horrible feeling that it may be one of those "Enjoy Carmen with Us for the Price of a Small Fortune Evenings" that are advertised in the nice looking pamphlets, which I tend to bin without reading).

Thanks for any help and the loan of your attention for the past pair of paragraphs...

[inter mezzo]

@HairMan - I don't know the answer, but I suspect it's an access event, along the lines of the infamous Sun readers' Don Giovanni last year. Ticket allocations for these are usually private - the Sun experiment was unusual.

[HairMan]

Thanks very much for that. I've just checked out the access list and am very happy to see that it exists.

On the subject of the Sun gimmick I sincerely hope they don't try doing it again - I'm all for encouraging new audiences, I'm one of them after all - but to get into bed with a paper whose attitude towards anything that hasn't involved booze, birds and balls (the football variety) has been less than enlightening over the years was a bit disappointing in my eyes.

There is a fabled "new" audience out there, but please, please ROH don't think it resides with the Sun. Preferably I'd rather see there be an advertising campaign with Pantene or Schwarzkopf - but I would say that, wouldn't I?

[Chris]

Here is an oddity: Florez is skipping a performance of the Barber this season because it does not give him the two days he requires to "rest" his voice, but in 2010 he is scheduled to sing Fille du Regiment several times with only one day's rest in between. Is the Barber more taxing a role than Tonio in Fille, or will he be skipping performances in 2010 too, at the last minute?

[Claudia]

It IS another Sun event - registration for the ballot ends 2nd September.