Page 105 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

23 January 2024

English Touring Opera in

Spring 2024

23/01/2024 by AUTHOR

English Touring Opera presents new productions of Manon Lescaut and The Rake’s
Progress for Spring 2024 tour (24 February – 28 May 2024)

• New English translation of Manon Lescaut by director Jude Christian
• New productions and opera for children, The Great Stink, to reach thousands of people in
more than 20 towns and cities across the country

English Touring Opera (ETO) presents new productions of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut and
Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress for its Spring 2024 tour. The season explores the temptations
and pitfalls of the big city, both in the larger-scale productions and their new opera for
children, The Great Stink. Continuing ETO’s mission to make exceptional artistic experiences
available to all, the tour brings outstanding live productions and impactful education and
community projects to more than twenty towns and cities across the country.

The tour opens with a radical, dreamlike interpretation of Manon Lescaut, a devastating
depiction of a woman wrestling with her desire for love on her own terms, and the double
standards imposed on her by society. Packed with memorable music and heartbreaking
drama, this new production presents a unique modern take on one of Puccini’s most
loved operas. The production is directed by Jude Christian – recently acclaimed for
her ‘brilliantly provocative’ (The Guardian) Titus Andronicus at the Sam Wanamaker
Playhouse – who also brings her sharp, punchy new English translation to the piece. Gerry