Opera Holland Park 2023

Opera Holland Park is the go-to summer music venue for music-lovers, and in 2023 it will be presenting more than the classics of the opera repertoire for which it is justly renowned.

Alongside Verdi and Puccini and others will be contemporary composer Jonathan Dove, best known perhaps for his airport-set opera Flight. With Itch he breaks new ground again, bringing to the stage the questing youngster Itchingham Holte, from the Itch trilogy by radio star Simon Mayo.

With librettist Alasdair Middleton, Dove is creating an opera underpinned by the periodic table – chemistry's definitive list of elements. Intellectually curious Itch sets out to collect an example of each element, and the opera follows his journey. In the best traditions of a ripping yarn, Itch sets out to save the world, but on the way has to outwit a teacher, a global corporation and a shady government agency.

Opera-lovers can even be part of the venture. Click here to find out more about Itch.

Opera Holland Park 2023 opens on 30 May with Verdi's Rigoletto. Recent notable productions of Verdi have included La Traviata (2018, 2021) and Un Ballo in Maschera.

Also being staged in the season, which runs until the end of August, is the ultimate fairy tale opera, Hansel and Gretel, by the German composer Engelbert Humperdinck. Both it and Itch will appeal to family audiences.

Puccini's La Bohème continues Opera Holland Park's special affinity with Italian verismo opera of the late 19th century, with its insights into ordinary lives. The turbulent love affair of seamstress Mimì and poet Rodolfo is set against a vivacious Parisian backdrop.

Closing the season is Gilbert and Sullivan's satirical opera, Ruddigore. Staged in collaboration with the inventive Charles Court Opera, this promises to send the 2023 OHP audience home with a smile on their face.

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Opera Holland Park productions are sung in the original language with English surtitles. General booking opens on 3 April