Much of this information has been circulating unofficially in any case, but the Royal Opera has just announced its plans for next season. The rings of the Olympic flag - this, alas, will be the year in which the accursed Games render London unbearable - are to be paralleled in three cycles: Mozart's Da Ponte operas, Berlioz's Les Troyens (in the sense of its spanning the Trojan War: and let us give thanks that once again, this masterpiece will be performed in London), and Puccini's Il trittico. In addition, Wagner's Ring will re-appear at the beginning of the following season (September 2012) and the fortieth anniversary of Plácido Domingo's Royal Opera debut will be marked by an evening bringing together acts from three operas significant to his career.
New productions are, in chronological order, as follows:
Il trittico (Richard Jones and Antonio Pappano complete the trilogy begun with their Gianni Schicchi)
Rusalka (Salzburg Festival production from Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Camilla Nylund)
Missfortune (Judith Weir, British premiere, co-commissioned with Bregenz Festival, directed by Shi-Zheng Chen and conducted by Paul Daniel)
Falstaff (Robert Carsen and Daniele Gatti)
Les troyens (David McVicar and Antonio Pappano; Jonas Kaufmann, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Eva-Maria Westbroek)
(ROH2 will also offer premieres, including Tarik O'Regan's Heart of Darkness.)
Revivals:
Don Giovanni (Constantinos Carydis: two casts, led by Gerald Finley and Erwin Schrott)
Così fan tutte (Sir Colin Davis)
Le nozze di Figaro (Antonio Pappano; Simon Keenlyside, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo)
Der fliegende Holländer (Jeffrey Tate; Anja Kampe, Falk Struckmann, Endrik Wottrich, Stephen Milling)
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Antonio Pappano; Wolfgang Koch, Simon O'Neill, Peter Coleman-Wright, Emma Bell, Toby Spence, Sir John Tomlinson as Pogner)
Otello (Antonio Pappano)
La traviata (for three (!) runs)
Faust
La somnambula
Rigoletto (Sir John Eliot Gardiner)
La fille du régiment
La bohème (Semyon Bychkov)
Salome (Andris Nelsons)
Otello (Antonio Pappano)
