Opera North

This intense story of love, jealousy and sacrifice is by turns harrowing, heart-wrenching and starkly tragic. It took Janá?ek ten years to complete his first great opera, and in the final year of its composition he witnessed his own daughter’s painful illness and early death. His soul-piercing score is laced with the suffering caused by this event.

Tom Cairns returns to direct a production acclaimed for its beautifully simple staging and sheer emotional power. A world-class cast includes Susan Bickley (Waltraute, Götterdämmerung) as the Kostelni?ka and Elizabeth Sikora (Salud’s Grandmother, La vida breve) as Grandmother Buryjkova. In the title role is the Swedish soprano Ylva Kihlberg, who gave a memorably powerful performance as Emilia Marty in The Makropolus Case for the Company in 2012.