The Welsh National Opera has announced its 2021-22 season.

Autumn 2021

The season will open at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff in September with Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.” The cast will include Nico Darmanin,  Nicholas Lester,  Heather Lowe, Andrew Shore,  Keel Watson, and Tomáš Hanus will conduct. 

Performance Dates: Sept. 9, 2021 – Dec 2, 2021 at Cardiff, Plymouth, Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton, Oxford, Llandudno

The fall season will also include a new production of “Madama Butterfly” directed by Australian director Lindy Hume and conducted by WNO Conductor Laureate, Carlo Rizzi. The new production has been created as a socially relevant telling of Puccini’s classic tale and will star Joyce El-Khoury and Alexia Voulgaridou in the title role, Leonardo Caimi and Peter Autv as Pinkerton, Anna Harvey and Kezia Bienek as Suzuki, and Mark Stone as Sharpless.

Performance Dates: Sept. 24-Dec. 1, 2021 at Cardiff, Plymouth, Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton, Oxford, Llandudno

Spring 2022

The Spring 2022 Season will open in February with Mozart’s “Don Giovanni“ alongside “Jenůfa“ directed by Katie Mitchell in a continuation of the Company’s Janáček Series. The work will be conducted by WNO’s Music Director Tomáš Hanus. “Madama Butterfly“ will also be performed in some tour venues during the Spring.

WNO’s Youth Opera groups will join forces for a full-scale performance of “The Black Spider“ at Wales Millennium Centre’s Weston Studio in May 2022. Dates and casts will be announced later. 

Summer 2022

The new opera “Migrations,” previously planned for Summer 2021, will now be premiered in Cardiff in June/July 2022 and will tour in Autumn 2022. To create a diversity of voices and experiences, five writers Shreya Sen Handley, Edson Burton and Miles Chambers, Eric Ngalle Charles and Sarah Woods worked with Sir David Pountney to create the libretto of six stories. The work features music by British composer Will Todd and will be conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren. Sir David Pountney directs and a cast of 100 including a gospel choir, a children’s chorus, Bollywood dancers and soloists from across the world will star. 

In July 2022 18–25-year-old members of WNO Youth Opera will take to the stage in a new production of Shostakovich’s “Cheryomushki.” Daisy Evans will direct and Alice Farnham will conduct.