British Youth Opera Summer Season - Paul Bunyan and The Secret Marriage

Paul Bunyan

Music by Benjamin Britten
Libretto by W H Auden
Approx. 2hr 30m (including interval)

Benjamin Britten's first opera was a collaboration with W H Auden; written with Broadway in mind (and premiered a stone's-throw away) its easy-going musical style is full of the influence of jazz, swing and country music.

With a cast of 44 singers it tells of the founding of America by a motley band of pioneers, led by the folklore hero 'as tall as the Empire State'.

Peter Robinson conductor
William Kerley director
Jason Southgate designer
David Howe lighting designer
Mandy Demetriou movement director
in association with Southbank Sinfonia and part of Britten100


The Secret Marriage

Music by Domenico Cimarosa
Libretto by Giovanni Bertati
Sung in the English translation by Donald Pippin
Approx. 3hr (including interval)

Mere months after Mozart's death it was Domenico Cimarosa's The Secret Marriage that was the talk of Vienna, proving more popular than any of Mozart's operas.

Taking Hogarth's Marriage à la mode as its starting point it is a tale of class rivalries, marriageable sisters and a pompous English Count that sits comfortably in the comic opera tradition between Mozart and Rossini.

Roy Laughlin conductor
Martin Lloyd-Evans director
To be announced designer
David Howe lighting designer
Mandy Demetriou movement director
in association with Southbank Sinfonia