English Touring Opera Announces 2026-27 Season, Featuring New Productions of Dido & Aeneas and Tosca

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Ariadne and Orpheus & Eurydice also join the lineup.

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English Touring Opera has revealed their 2026/27 season, which explores four timeless stories of love and grief, encompassing music from the 17th century to the present day.

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Their Autumn tour opens with a double bill of Elena Langer's Ariadne and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, two operas centred on women who upend their lives to help the man they love, only to be abandoned at their most vulnerable. It will tour together with a radical new production of Orpheus & Eurydice, which will also extend into the Spring tour alongside a new production of Puccini's Tosca.

The nation's leading touring opera company, ETO brings world-class theatre for high-street prices and impactful participatory projects to more towns and cities than any other UK opera company in its mission to make exceptional artistic experiences available to all.

The announcement follows the company's critically acclaimed Spring 2026 tour, which garnered multiple 5* reviews – praise for the company's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers included “a masterpiece and testament to the importance of ETO's presence in the UK” (Opera Now) and "hugely entertaining… a delightful show that is the very definition of musical entertainment" (The Stage). The production was also a success with audiences across the country, becoming the highest-attended of any ETO show.

ETO's Autumn 2026 tour will once again open at the Lyceum Theatre in the company's home city of Sheffield, as the company continues to deepen ties to the city. The tour begins with a double bill of Elena Langer's Ariadne and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, presenting a fascinating exploration of mythology and psychology from operas written over 300 years apart. Ariadne adapts a poem by Glynn Maxwell into a beautiful and devastating piece for soprano and off-stage countertenor and an on-stage quartet of oboe, violin, viola and cello. The title role of Ariadne is sung by soprano Jessica Cale, whose previous credits for ETO include the roles of Monteverdi's Poppea and Giulietta in The Capulets & The Montagues, with the offstage voice of the absent and faithless Theseus sung by countertenor Kieron Connor Valentine. Anna Morrissey , co-director of Last Days (RBO) and choreographer for productions at The National Theatre , Opera North and RSC directs, with musical direction from Claudia Fuller.

Purcell's beloved opera Dido & Aeneas completes the double bill, recalling the tragedy of the Queen of Carthage in a masterpiece of Baroque music. Mezzo-soprano Samantha Price – recently acclaimed for her “multi-layered mezzo... captivating charisma” (The Arts Desk) in her performance as Romeo in the company's 2025 production of The Capulets and the Montagues - sings the role of Dido, while baritone Michael Lafferty makes his company debut in the role of Aeneas. Isabelle Atkinson plays Dido's companion Belinda and Lydia Shariff Sorceress. Rebecca Meltzer, co-founder of Waterperry Opera Festival, makes her ETO directorial debut and Alex Robinson leads the ETO orchestra from the harpsichord, performing on period instruments. The double-bill is designed by Alex Berry , whose work includes arresting set and costume designs for Hansel & Gretel at the Royal Academy of Music and The Barber of Seville at Nevill Holt.

Throughout the 2026/27 season ETO are touring Gluck's Orpheus & Eurydice in a new production from Jenny Ogilvie , returning to ETO after her 2023 production of Cinderella. The production will feature a new orchestration by Leo Grant, whose recent compositions have been performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Aldeburgh, Amsterdam and New York following earlier releases of electronic music on Goldie's Metalheadz label in the 2000s. Leo's work frequently collages and converses with existing compositions, with pieces such as 'Six Preludes and Not-Fugues' and 'Brahms, with additional accidentals'. The production will be recognisably Gluck's opera, while also incorporating new electronic soundworlds to depict Orpheus' grief and descent into the underworld. Singing the role of Orpheus in the Autumn is tenor William Morgan , who returns to ETO following his acclaimed performance in the 2025 production of The Rape of Lucretia (“ William Morgan as the Male Chorus arrested the audience with his storytelling and dynamic tenor”, Opera Now), while Joe Doody takes over the role in the Spring. Soprano Galina Averina sings Eurydice in her first role for ETO since 2018, while soprano Rosie Lomas also returns to ETO to sing the role of Amore, with Isabelle Atkinson, Alexandra Meier, Guy Elliott and Jonathan Eyers completing the cast. Iwan Davies, Head of Music at Buxton Festival, makes his ETO conducting debut. Noemi Dabocz, who has designed for RBO, Zurich Opera House and Oper Wuppertal, is set and Costume Designer for Orpheus, with Joe Hornsby lighting all three productions in the season.

ETO's mythical theme this Autumn continues with Mimi & the Golden Touch, a new sensory-friendly commission for SEND pupils and family audiences from writer Malaika Kegode (The Colour of Dinosaurs, Polka Theatre) and composer Vaha Salorian (Beauty and the 7 Beasts, The Opera Story). Co-created with students at Briarwood School in Bristol, Mimi & the Golden Touch updates the myth of King Midas to tell the story of a girl coming to terms with who she is and how to relate to the world. It is directed by Lucy Bradley and designed by Sascha Gilmour, and will tour to SEND schools, libraries and Garsington Opera. The Autumn 2026 season opens on Friday 9 October and tours until Saturday 28 November, performing in Sheffield, London, Buxton, Snape, Barnstaple, Malvern and Saffron Walden.

The production of Orpheus & Eurydice reaches an even wider audience across the country as it extends into ETO's Spring 2027 tour, which will open at the Gala Theatre in Durham for the first time as ETO continues to strengthen its base in the north of England.

Spring 2027 also sees a new production of Puccini's Tosca, directed by ETO Artistic Director Robin Norton-Hale. Set over two tumultuous days, as Tosca and her lover Cavaradossi try to stay true to each other and their ideals in the face of a brutal regime, Puccini's thriller grips with its depiction of humanity's capacity for love and violence. Norton-Hale has previously won acclaim for her productions of Puccini's works, including an Olivier Award for La bohème with OperaUpClose, which was recently adapted into a feature film. ETO Music Director Gerry Cornelius conducts, with sets and costumes from award-winning designer Madeleine Boyd.

The Spring 2027 tour opens at Gala Theatre, Durham on Friday 5 March with Orpheus & Eurydice, then travels to Norwich, London, Bath, Cambridge, Chester, Poole, Canterbury, Cheltenham, Sheffield, Exeter and Truro. Full casting for the Spring 2027 tour will be announced in due course.

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwopera/article/DIDO-AENEAS-TOSCA-and-More-Set-for-English-Touring-Operas-2026-27-Season-20260618)._