The Barber of Seville remains among the top ten most popular operas; with some 455 performances across the world in the 2011-12 season*. An excellent result for an opera that was reputedly written in about three weeks. It is rarer to see a new translation from the Italian, but it is a given of Heritage Opera’s work that founders Nick Sales and Sarah Helsby Hughes provide translations for each of their new productions. So, freshly minted, the dodgy barber Figaro will suggest various ridiculous solutions to Almaviva’s problem of gaining access to the girl he loves whilst avoiding her over-protective guardian.

With a five-piece ensemble the company will tour historic venues across the north of England such as Haigh Hall, Wigan and Thornton Manor in the Wirral, plus a variety of theatres and concert halls.

This production opens the company’s season which will continue with the Magic Flute (August) and several performances of their successful 2012 production of La Boheme.

Heritage Opera’s 2013 season opens with a new translation of Rossini’s Barber of Seville at St John’s Minster, Preston, on May 24.

*statistics courtesy of Operabase

Variations on the theme of love make up Grange Park’s 2013 season.  It opens with Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, (directed by Stephen Medcalf and conducted by Martyn Brabbins), a work which reflects the composer’s state of mind during his short marriage and the resulting mental breakdown.  Onegin is unable to love Tatyna, who declares her love for him in a letter (as did the composer’s future wife); he flirts with his best friend’s fiancée which prompts a fatal duel and when he meets Tatyana again many years later understands too late that he could have been happy with her.

Star-crossed lovers of a more traditional kind feature in Bellini’s I Puritani, set during the English civil war where cavaliers and roundheads stand in for Montagues and Capulets (Bellini had already written an opera on the Romeo and Juliette story).  Plot twists include the widow of the executed Charles I and a pardon in the nick of time.  Stephen Langridge directs and Gianluca Marciano conducts what turned out to be Bellini’s last opera when he died unexpectedly at the age of 34.

The third opera in the season, directed by John Doyle and conducted by Stephen Barlow, is Poulenc’s Les Carmélites which deals with a different kind of love.  Blanche’s devotion to God is doubted by the Carmelite Prioress who dies as the French Revolution threatens those in religious professions who will not renounce their faith.  When revolutionaries come calling Blanche initially escapes but finally confirms her love of God by joining her sisters in martyrdom.

As a season bonus, there are two performances of a light-hearted riff on the perennial theme of wives, lovers and elderly husbands with wardrobes and chandeliers thrown in for good measure.  Based on the Alfred de Musset comedy, Fortunio by Andre Messager is a happy farce which will be directed by Daniel Slater and conducted by Toby Purser.

The Grange Park summer season opens with Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin on May 30 and continues with Bellini’s I Puritani on May 31, Poulenc’s Les Carmélites on June 11 and Messager’s Fortunio on July 10.

‘Bel canto’ is one of those terms that sound esoteric and can provoke an irrational fear of Italian opera.  No cause for alarm, it just refers to beautiful singing and a singer’s vocal expressiveness and agility in addressing music that favours the dramatic and the ornate.  This Spring English Touring Opera is offering three works from comedy to tragedy, from rare to familiar, which focus on storytelling through bel canto, and will provide opportunities for singers to celebrate their skills and for audiences to enjoy them.

Both Mozart and Donizetti fall squarely within the bel canto repertoire.  Così fan tutte is a well known and much loved work which confidently mixes the complex flourishes of 18th century music with a comedy of innocence and experience which is both touching and satirical.  In one day fiances are parted, and new fiances found – or so it seems.  Discovering they are not at all the people they thought they were is strange, exciting, and very embarrassing.  The delicate balance between recognizing the posturing of the four young lovers and loving them all the same is a challenge to each director and singer.

The rarely heard Siege of Calais (L’assedio di Calais) by Donizetti asks what a citizen owes to his city or country.  It is the story of the burghers of Calais, citizens who offer up their lives to save their city from a besieging army.  Their sacrifice is quiet, ordinary and sublime.  Constructed of bel canto arias and ensembles the opera ends with the extremely moving ensemble, O sacra polve, o suol nation (O Sacred Earth).  Its third act has long been considered less than perfect and has sometimes been dropped, including by the composer himself; this new production presents a two act version.

Influenced by the Italian bel canto tradition, Verdi moves it a step further on when opera begins to reflect the drama of the story rather more than the drama of the music.  The company’s first new Verdi production for several years, Simon Boccanegra is a mature and intimate drama about family, love and politics.  The story comes from the history of Genoa, for centuries a great maritime republic, and from it Verdi creates an impassioned plea for Italian unity.

English Touring Opera’s Spring tour begins at London’s Hackney Empire on March 2 with Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte and continues with Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra on March 8 and Donizetti’s The Siege of Calais on March 9.  The tour continues until May 30.