COLE Porter’s Sizzling Battle of the Sexes Kiss Me, Kate will launch Opera North's Autumn Tour.

Porter’s jazzy Broadway sensation will open the company's season at Leeds Grand Theatre on September 25 before embarking on a tour circuit of Northern venues including the Theatre Royal Newcastle, The Lowry Salford Quays and Theatre Royal Nottingham.

The Porter classic will be taken on tour alongside two contrasting revivals from the opera repertoire; Rossini’s door-slamming farce The Barber of Seville and Tom Cairns’ production of Janá?ek’s powerful tragedy Jen?fa.

Kiss Me, Kate opens the season in spectacular style, and is a co-production with the Welsh National Opera. The farcical battle of the sexes revolves around the tempestuous love lives of actor-manager Fred Graham and his leading lady and ex-wife, Lilli Vanessi, during a musical production of The Taming of the Shrew. Directed by Jo Davies (Ruddigore, Carousel and The Marriage of Figaro) with new choreography by The Royal Ballet’s Will Tuckett, the sizzling Broadway hit is said to be ‘Too Darn Hot’ to miss.

Casting brings together talent from the worlds of opera and the West End, headed by Jeni Bern as Lilli Vanessi/Katherine and Quirijn de Lang as Fred Graham/Petruchio. They are joined by Tiffany Graves as Lois Lane/Bianca, most recently seen as Ulla in The Producers 2015 UK tour; with previous West End roles including both Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart in Chicago; Sweet Charity at the Theatre Royal Haymarket; and Killer Queen in We Will Rock You.

Bill Calhoun/Lucentio is played by fast-rising musical theatre star Ashley Day, who recently played the lead role of Curly in Oklahoma! to critical acclaim, and has previously appeared as Elder Price in The Book of Mormon in the West End.

Giles Havergal’s fast, upbeat and slapstick production of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville returns once more. A prequel to Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, The Barber of Seville tells the story of the dashing young lovers, Rosina and Count Almaviva, who aided by the inexhaustible and cunning barber Figaro, brew up a romantic scheme to outwit Rosina’s elderly guardian and fiancé Doctor Bartolo.

By contrast Tom Cairns’s emotional production of Jen?fa sees a young woman, who after becoming pregnant, is left by her lover to bear her child alone during the bitter winter. As the ice melts, all the shattered hopes of the previous summer are gruesomely revealed in an intense and powerful finale to Janá?ek’s soul-piercing work.

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