The Lost Thing represents a collaboration between the Royal Opera, composer Jules Maxwell and Candoco Dance Company and its Artistic Co-Director Ben Wright. It is based on Shaun Tan’s eponymous book of 2000, which also spawned an Oscar-winning animation, and sees a boy (Shaun) discover a strange creature on the beach. He finds it impossible to describe it as anything other than The Thing, and since it seems to belong nowhere it is The Lost Thing. When Shaun tries to find a place...

Death in Venice of 1973 is Benjamin Britten’s final opera. Based on Thomas Mann’s eponymous novella of 1912, it tells of a writer Gustav von Aschenbach who becomes obsessed to the point of madness with a youth who he repeatedly sees while in Venice. Given that the pair never speak to each other, it might not feel like obvious dramatic material but it has spawned a classic film (starring Dirk Bogarde) as well as Britten’s own masterpiece. It is possible to see the...

Die Zauberflöte is Mozart’s final opera, and takes the form of a Singspiel that combines singing with spoken dialogue. In it, the Queen of the Night persuades Prince Tamino to rescue her daughter Pamina from captivity under the high priest Sarastro, who she claims is evil. As Tamino goes about his quest, however, and falls in love with Pamina, he learns that things are the other way around. The Queen of the Night represents the forces of darkness, while Sarastro’s...

Agrippina of 1709 is the second opera that Handel wrote in Italy, and his first notable operatic success. Set in Ancient Rome, it sees the title character, who is the wife of the Emperor Claudio, take steps to ensure that her son from her first marriage, Nerone, is crowned Emperor when news reaches her that Claudio has been killed at sea. After, however, manipulating the freedmen Pallante and Narciso to hail Nerone as Emperor in front of the Senate, the commander Ottone arrives proclaiming...

Don Giovanni of 1787 is one of three operas that Mozart wrote with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte (the others being Le nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte). It tells of the eponymous hero, or rather antihero, who effortlessly conquers thousands of women. Although in the process he makes many enemies, the ladies he has cheated have a habit of coming back for more or trying to save him, and in the end he is responsible for his own downfall. When the ghost of the Commendatore who he...

It is highly fitting that the Royal Opera House should present George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Solomon now since its predecessor on the site, the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, hosted the first performance on 17 March 1749. At the time of its premiere the composer’s decades-long domination of the London opera scene had already come to an end, but his oratorios in English, which he had begun composing while still writing operas, were going from strength to strength. While...