Organization

Conductor

Garry Walker

Stage director

Giles Havergal

Assistant Stage Director

Elaine Tyler-Hall

Set designer

Leslie Travers

Costume designer

Lighting designer

John Bishop

Choreographer

Tim Claydon

Singer

Tenor

Dafydd Jones

Albert Herring

Mezzo-soprano

Claire Pascoe

Mrs Herring

Contralto

Heather Shipp

Florence Pike

Soprano

Amy Freston

Miss Wordsworth

Bass

Richard Mosley-Evans

Superintendent Budd

Baritone

Dominic Sedgwick

Katie Bray

Nancy

Opera North

Orchestra

Orchestra of Opera North

David Cowan

Judith Howarth

Lady Billows

Paul Nilon

Mr Upfold

Rosa Sparks

Emmie

William Dazeley

Mr Gedge

English

Leeds

United Kingdom

Howard Assembly Room

Albert Herring Britten

Public

Approved

May Day is looming, and the small town of Loxford is in chaos.

All the potential May Queens are deemed morally unsuitable. Desperate, the locals decide a May King will have to do instead. They choose the blameless Albert Herring, from the greengrocers. He isn’t keen, but stuck firmly under his mother’s thumb, he’ll do what he is told. However, after one rum-laced lemonade at the May Day ceremony, Albert disappears, and even greater chaos ensues.

The opera’s librettist Eric Crozier took a story by Maupassant and transformed it into a quintessentially English comedy. Britten’s music characterises the town’s inhabitants with a biting satirical wit – but there’s a touch of affection, too, for a vanished way of life. The intimacy of the Howard Assembly Room is the perfect environment for Giles Havergal’s delightfully immersive production.

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble