An Introduction to the Royal Opera 2002/03 Season by Antonio Pappano,
   Music Director of the Royal Opera

   ...A new beginning, a golden opportunity.

   Welcome to our 2002/03 season.

   The Royal Opera offers a richly varied programme for this Season and
   I am happy indeed that my appointment happened long enough ago for
   me to have been involved in its planning.  Some projects of course
   have been in the pipe-line for a number of years - not least the
   world premiere of Nicholas Maw's opera Sophie's Choice, a title
   already well known from the novel and film.  A terrific team of
   artists will create this December premiere, lead by Simon Rattle and
   Trevor Nunn, with huge singing talents like Angelika Kirchschlager
   and Rodney Gilfry in the cast.

   My personal choices to conduct in my first Season as Music Director
   of course tell you something about my own taste; new productions of
   Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Berg's Wozzeck, Puccini's Madama Butterfly,
   Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and a revival of Verdi's Falstaff, all musical
   and theatrical masterpieces I love.  Working on new productions
   together with the creative teams is, for me, a most important and
   thrilling process.  Both Christof Loy (directing Ariadne) and Keith
   Warner (Wozzeck) have been regular collaborators of mine in Brussels
   and elsewhere, and I became a fan of Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser
   when I saw their new La Cenerentola here last year.  They will direct
   the new Madama Butterfly, as well as reviving La Cenerentola and
   staging their Geneva production of Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet.  Pagliacci
   is a special indulgence - a production by one of the true masters,
   Franco Zeffirelli, mounted to bring together some spectacular talents
   - Placido Domingo, Angela Gheorghiu and Dmitri Hvorostovsky to end
   the Season.

   Other new productions include Verdi's Luisa Miller and Mozart's Die
   Zauberflote, directed by two of last season's successful debutantes,
   Olivier Tambosi (who directed Jenufa) and David McVicar (whose
   Rigoletto is also back for its first revival); La clemenza di Tito,
   directed by Stephen Lawless; and Verdi's I masnadieri in Elijah
   Moshinsky's production reaches the stage of the Royal Opera House
   for the first time.

   It is an honour after taking up the baton of The Royal Opera from my
   great predecessor Bernard Haitink to be sharing this first season
   with many major figures of the conducting world: Colin Davis conducts
   Die Zauberflote and La clemenza di Tito; Charles Mackerras Semele
   and concerts of Rusalka; Edward Downes conducts I masnadieri; John
   Eliot Gardiner The Cunning Little Vixen, and Mark Elder Lohengrin -
   and apart from this illustrious group of British-based artists,
   Christoph von Dohnanyi returns to conduct Strauss' Elektra.

   I am very happy to have some of the newer conductor talents making
   their debuts with us in my first Season, such as Mark Wigglesworth
   with Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Louis Langree, Hamlet, Paolo
   Carignani, La traviata and Philippe Jordan, Die Zauberflote.  And in
   addition a group of Italian conductors return to The Royal Opera -
   Maurizio Benini for Rigoletto and Luisa Miller, Gianluigi Gelmetti
   for Turandot and Evelino Pido for La Cenerentola.

   A dazzling array of singers are on display; Bryn Terfel is back as
   Falstaff, Renee Fleming sings Rusalka in concert and the long list
   of favourites includes Thomas Allen, Amanda Roocroft, Juan Diego
   Florez, Bruce Ford, Simon Keenlyside, Waltraud Meier and many, many
   more - but there are also some long awaited house debuts, like Natalie
   Dessay as Zerbinetta and Ophelia, Dawn Upshaw as the Vixen, Matthias
   Goerne as Wozzeck and some exciting newcomers to look forward to,
   among them Patricia Ciofi as Gilda and Diana Damrau as Queen of Night.

   I'm very proud of our Vilar Young Artists Programme which will this
   Season contain ten singers, a conductor, director and repetiteur,
   whose presence will be increasingly obvious in main-stage casting,
   their summer concert and their activities in the Linbury Studio
   Theatre.  A new opera by John Browne b ased on Babette's Feast
   featuring many of them will be the first commissioned opera for the
   Linbury Studio Theatre in November.

Janos Gereben/SF
[log in to unmask]