Wayne McGregor will present a ballet based on the life and work of author Virginia Woolf as part of the Royal Opera House’s 2014/15 season.
Marking the renowned choreographer’s first full length ballet for the iconic Covent Garden venue, Woolf Works features a newly commissioned score by Max Richter and will play from 11 to 26 May 2015.
The Royal Ballet’s season will also include new one-act ballets from Hofesh Shechter and Liam Scarlett. Scarlett, like McGregor, has drawn inspiration from literature for his forthcoming world premiere, which is inspired by WH Auden’s 1946 poem about the lost illusions of youth. It will play alongside Kim Brandstrup’s acclaimed Ceremony Of Innocence and Christopher’s Wheeldon’s Olivier Award-winning 21-minute piece Aeternum from 7 to 17 November.
Shechter’s first commission for the Royal Ballet will make up part of a triple bill that plays from 27 March to 14 April. The world premiere will be accompanied by George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, which is based on the medieval theory of the four humours, and Kenneth MacMillan’s embodiment of love, loss and death Song Of The Earth.
Revivals will also feature heavily in the Royal Ballet’s 2014/15 season, with Carlos Acosta’s production of Don Quixote (25 November 2014 to 22 January 2015) receiving its first revival and MacMillan’s Manon (26 September to 29 October 2014) being revived to celebrate its 40th anniversary.
For the 2014 festive season, Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland will return to the Royal Opera House, bringing Lewis Carroll’s enchanting world to the main house from 6 December to 16 January. Meanwhile, in the venue’s Linbury Studio Theatre, ZooNation will take Wonderland’s much-loved inhabitants and place them in an antiquated mental asylum for the world premiere of The Mad Hatter’s T Party (6 December to 3 January).
The Royal Opera also has an exciting season in store for 2014/15. Its upcoming programme will continue to celebrate the work of Music Director Antonio Pappano, who has extended his tenure at the venue until at least 2017.
Pappano will conduct two revivals and four new pieces for the season, starting with 2011 hit Anna Nicole from 11 to 24 September. The opening night of Anna Nicole will see the Royal Opera House’s vast auditorium filled entirely with students. Tickets to the performance will cost between £1 and £25 in keeping with the venue’s vision to attract future audiences.
For his first new production of the season, Pappano is reunited with 2014 Olivier Award nominee Plácido Domingo, who will star in Verdi’s I Due Foscari from 14 October to 2 November. The conductor will also work on productions of Tristan Und Isolde (5 to 21 December), Andrea Chénier (20 January to 6 February), Król Roger (1 to 19 May) and Guillaume Tell (29 June to 17 July), adding to the staggering number of performances he has conducted as Music Director for the Royal Opera, which will exceed 400 at the beginning of the new season.
Following on from the Royal Ballet’s exploration of fantasy fiction, the Royal Opera will present the London premiere of Richard Ayres’ Peter Pan, which sees Iestyn Morris and Marie Arnet take on the roles of Wendy and Peter in July 2015.
For full details of the 2014/15 seasons from the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet, including how you can listen to 15 opera productions on BBC Radio 3, visit the Royal Opera House’s website.