Building on Opera North’s previous sustainable productions, such as Handel’s Alcina in 2022, and the staging of Not Such Quiet Girls in the Howard Assembly Room in 2018, the Autumn season of 2023 will be our first sustainable season of three productions.
All three Green Season productions use shared scenic elements to create three interlinked yet distinctive designs, enabling Opera North to reduce its use of materials and its carbon footprint. All sets, props and costumes in the season are sourced from previous productions or purchased second-hand.
In addition, more matinee performances have been introduced in order to make it easier for audiences to travel on public transport.
The Green Season’s ambitious and progressive programme is guided by the Theatre Green Book, an industry-wide initiative to facilitate sustainable ways of working across productions, buildings and operations.
The Green Season includes new productions of Verdi’s Falstaff and Puccini’s La rondine, as well as the world premiere of Masque of Might, an ‘eco-entertainment’ adapted and assembled by Sir David Pountney from the works of Henry Purcell. This witty, incisive and fantastical work addresses urgently topical themes such as the abuses of a powerful political leader and the gathering climate crisis.