The last I heard, the 2011-12 Royal Opera House season was scheduled to be announced on 14 April (same day as the Proms, so it might get 'rethought').
But there's no harm in a little informed speculation beforehand. Here's what may be turning up at Covent Garden next year. All comments welcome.......
Il Trittico (part new)
Sep 2011
Richard Jones directs all three parts. Two new productions will be added to the existing Gianni Schicchi with different designers for each. Eva Maria Westbroek, Anja Harteros, Aleksandrs Antonenko, cond Antonio Pappano
Faust (revival)
Sep/Oct 2011
Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Rene Pape, Vittorio Grigolo, Angela Gheorghiu//Malin Byström (or more likely just Malin Byström....), cond Pido
Die fliegende Holländer (revival)
Oct/Nov 2011
Anja Kampe, Endrik Wottrich, Falk Struckmann, Stephen Milling, cond Jeffrey Tate
La traviata (revival)
Oct 2011 - Jan 2012(!)
3 casts & conductors
1) Poplavskaya, Valenti, Nucci
2) Perez, Beczala, Keenlyside
3) mixed cast including Netrebko/Jaho and Grigolo
Placido Domingo 40th anniversary gala
27 & 30 Oct 2011 (with gala dinner on 27)
"Not quite" the three final acts of Rigoletto, Boccanegra and Otello "with old friends and rising stars" including Antonio Pappano
La Sonnambula
Nov 2011
Eglise Gutierrez
Die Meistersinger (revival)
Dec 2011/Jan 2012
John Tomlinson as Pogner, Emma Bell as Eva, Wolfgang Koch as Sachs, Simon O'Neill as Walther, Peter Coleman-Wright as Beckmesser, Toby Spence as David cond Pappano
Mozart cycle:
Don Giovanni (revival)
Jan/Feb 2012
2 casts / 12 shows including Gerald Finley, Erwin Schrott, Matthew Polenzani, Pavol Breslik, cond Colin Davis
Così fan tutte (revival)
Jan/Feb 2012
Tom Allen as Don Alfonso
Le nozze di Figaro (revival)
Feb/Mar 2012
Aleksandra Kurzak, Kate Royal, Simon Keenlyside, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, cond Pappano
Mar 2012
New opera by Judith Weir, will premiere at Bregenz in July 2011. Director Shi-Zheng Chen, who directed Damon Albarn’s dodgy Monkey. With Emma Bell, Jacques Imbrailo
Other shows include a 10th anniversary Jette Parker Young Artists gala in July 2012 where Il viaggio a Reims will be performed by current and former JPYA's including Poplavskaya, Ailish Tynan and Matthew Rose (with ENO Orchestra).
'Meet the Young Artists' week in Autumn 2011 includes Le Portrait de Manon with ZhengZhong Zhou as Des Grieux.
There will be an extra week at the end of the season to tie in with the Olympics, featuring special performances and galas.
I've heard Village Romeo has been dropped altogether. Frau ohne Schatten is a co-production with La Scala which will do it next year - it comes to Covent Garden in 2014, probably at the end of the 13/14 season with Bychkov conducting which means that there will be no prizes for guessing that Botha will be the Kaiser again and that Schwanewilms WON'T be the Kaisterin. Westbroek has pulled out of this project, so the hot money will be on Emily Magee. Volle will probably be Barak and, if she's still singing, Polaski might be wheeled out for the Faerberin. But maybe Angela Denoke or Nadja Michael will be singing it by then. I wish Waltraud Meier would have a go at it.Barak would be a great role for Bryn, but I doubt he would learn it.
Other forthcoming productions include Robert Le Diable, which was originally discussed as a vehicle for Florez, but he has wisely had second thoughts, and I've heard that this may be another vehicle for Bryan Hymel, so they must be hoping he will be bums-on-seats superstar by the time it gets to the ROH stage.
Posted by: Nikolaus Vogel | 30 March 2011 at 01:56 PM
Wasn't 'A Village Romeo and Juliet' scheduled for this November ? But I believe that it was due to be conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, and, presumably, after his death either CG couldn't get a relacement, or didn't think enough of the work to pursue it.
Posted by: spd | 30 March 2011 at 03:09 PM
Zambella's new prod of Billy Budd was shown in about 1995 and 2000. Sold no more than about 70% each time despite excellent reviews. You can't blame them for keeping it as an occasional treat.
Posted by: Owen Bywater | 30 March 2011 at 03:24 PM
More fool you for trusting the ROH Collections website, which is - on this, as on so many works - hopelessly inaccurate. They don't even list the Zambello staging they mounted in the 90s originally, and revived in the new house in about 2003.
The Minotaur reappears, with Rice, Tomlinson and Pappano, in January 2013.
And the ENO most certainly should be disparaged for trying new things that don't work. Only the ridiculously partisan would defend their right to experimental failure for years on end as some kind of admirable artistic stance. If you want something different, try sticking your head in a bucket of live eels...
Posted by: sjt | 31 March 2011 at 01:43 AM
I'm very happy that the Salzburg Wieler/Morabito Rusalka will have a second chance and shall hopefully be filmed. The production is quite a hard bit for lovers of traditional stagings (and the critics weren't very friendly, because most of them understood neither the work nor the staging). Nylund as Rusalka was already there in Salzburg (W/Beczala, Remmert, Cleveland/Welser-Möst) and did not touch me very deeply, but she's much better in the role than Fleming, an awful experience for me (in Paris in the Carsen production, issued on DVD).
Maybe the season can disappoint the London regulars, but if you see it from France, it's very tempting compared to the Parisian misery!
If La donna del Lago mentioned in previous comentaries is supposed to be the Paris Pasqual production (coproduction with La Scala and ROH was mentioned), it would be better to forget it and do concert performances instead. One of the biggest flops in recent Paris opera history.
Posted by: Musicasola | 06 April 2011 at 02:02 PM
Apparently the Minotaur is meant to be coming back, though would have been nice to have had it in the Olympic year what with its Grecian connections...
Trebs as Norma is a laughable idea.
Posted by: Capriccio blog | 11 June 2011 at 12:28 PM