Opera North

Trial By Jury

The first true collaboration by the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan, Trial by Jury was an immediate success at its 1875 premiere, launching a series of 14 comic operas which was to include The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado.

A courtroom farce which quickly heads into delightful absurdity, Trial by Jury established much of the formula for Gilbert and Sullivan’s hugely popular works.

L’Enfant Et Les Sortilèges

Ravel’s captivating ‘lyric fantasy’, L’enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and the Magic Spells), composed to a libretto by the French novelist Colette, is dazzling, witty and surreal in equal measure.

A young boy argues with his mother, refuses to do his homework and flies into a tantrum, destroying the objects in the room around him. But in this childhood fable of enchantment, everything around the boy comes magically to life. Outside in the garden, he is also shunned by the animals and plants he has tormented and hurt, until he is forgiven after helping an injured squirrel.

One of only two short operas composed by Ravel, L’enfant et les sortilèges is both a delightful, whimsical fantasy and a profoundly moving response to the generational trauma of war, witnessed by both composer and librettist. Its exquisite, innovative score is filled with jewel-like surprises, perfectly capturing and deftly characterising talking animals and magical nursery furniture alike.