The Glyndebourne Festival 2022 will feature four new productions, along with two revivals of old favourites, the Sussex-based opera house has revealed. Next year’s event takes place from 21 May to 28 August.

The festival will open with a new version of Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers (1906). Set in an isolated Cornish coastal village, this three-act opera tells the story of a community of wreckers – bands of villagers who would extinguish the beacons established along the coast to guide ships, thus forcing them onto the rocks and then plundering the cargo and murdering the crews.

The production is directed by Melly Still and conducted by Glyndebourne’s Music Director Robin Ticciati. French mezzo-soprano Clémentine Margaine stars as Thirza, with German baritone Markus Brück in the role of her husband Pascoe and Mexican tenor Rodrigo Porras Garulo as her lover Mark. Australian soprano Lauren Fagan takes the role of Avis, with British bass-baritone James Rutherford as her father, lighthouse keeper Lawrence.

Also premiering next summer is Glyndebourne’s first new La bohème (The Bohemians, Puccini, 1896) for more than 20 years, which will be created by the Dutch director Floris Visser and rising star conductor Jordan de Souza. The cast is headed by Chinese tenor Long Long and Chilean soprano Yaritza Véliz as the lovers Rudolfo and Mimì respectively, with South African soprano Vuvu Mpofu returning to Glyndebourne in the role of Musetta.

The third new production in the season is Francesco Micheli’s sumptuous new staging of Handel’s Alcina (1735). Originally scheduled for the 2020 Glyndebourne Festival, this marks the opera house’s first staging of Handel’s magical fable. It tells the tale of the sorceress Alcina who has fallen in love with the handsome knight Ruggerio, but he is already betrothed to another.

Jonathan Cohen conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a cast that includes Canadian soprano Jane Archibald as the sorceress Alcina and Chinese soprano Ying Fang as her sister Morgana. The 2018 Glyndebourne Opera Cup winner Samantha Hankey makes her first festival appearance in a trouser role as the knight Ruggerio, alongside American contralto Avery Amereau as his betrothed, Bradamante, and British tenor Stuart Jackson as Morgana’s lover Oronte.

The final new production sees director Laurent Pelly take on two contrasting French masterpieces, with a double bill of operas by Poulenc, conducted by Robin Ticciati. La voix humaine (The Human Voice, 1959) is a 40-minute, one-act opera for a solo soprano and orchestra. The story consists of a woman’s last phone conversation with her lover, who now loves someone else. Glyndebourne favourite Stéphanie d’Oustrac takes on the role of Elle, the abandoned woman.

Les mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias, 1947) features a largely French cast. This farcical two-act opera contains a serious message: the need to rediscover and repopulate a country ravaged by war.

Soprano Elsa Benoit is Thérèse (the Tirésias of the title), while baritone Régis Mengus is her husband. Baritone Christophe Gay sings drunken gambler Monsieur Presto, mezzo-soprano Julie Pasturaud is a newspaper vendor and tenor Loïc Félix is a visiting Parisian journalist. Belgian baritone Lionel Lhote is the theatre director/gendarme and Swiss tenor François Piolino sings Monsieur Lacouf.

The lineup also includes revivals of two Glyndebourne favourites. Mariame Clément’s 2011 production of Don Pasquale (1843, Donizetti) is conducted by Ben Glassberg and stars Portuguese baritone José Fardilha as the eponymous don, alongside American soprano Erin Morley as Norina, British baritone Huw Montague Rendall as Malatesta and Canadian tenor Josh Lovell as Ernesto.

Michael Grandage’s 1970s-inspired Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786, Mozart) also makes a return, conducted by Giancarlo Andretta and Nicholas Carter. American baritone Brandon Cedel stars as Figaro, with South Korean soprano Hera Hyesang Park as Susanna, Mexican baritone Germán Olvera as Count Almaviva and American soprano Amanda Woodbury as the Countess. American mezzo-soprano Emily Pogorelc, who won the Ginette Theano Prize for Most Promising Talent at the 2018 Glyndebourne Opera Cup, takes the role of Cherubino.

For full casting details and to see the performance schedule, visit Glyndebourne’s website

 

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A revival of Michael Grandage’s production 2012 of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro will form part of the programme for the Glyndebourne 2022 Festival (Alastair Muir).