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Macbeth, Oliver! and now Puccini... theatre director Goold signs up to ENO
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent02.04.09
HE defied the curse of the Scottish play to produce an award-winning Macbeth with Patrick Stewart and went on to ignore showbusiness advice never to work with children, employing dozens in Oliver! with Rowan Atkinson.
But now Rupert Goold, 36, is taking on his biggest challenge yet.
He is to tackle one of Puccini's biggest operas when he directs Turandot - with the aria Nessun Dorma - in the English National Opera's next season.
The story of a Chinese princess, it requires giant forces: imperial guards, executioner's men, mandarins and wise men. Explaining why he wanted to do Turandot, Goold said: "My work, rather glibly, has been interested in what I call 'high-end horror'. There is something about the violence of Turandot I thought I might be able to illuminate."
John Berry, ENO's artistic director, said: "He's very musical and has done opera before, but it's a big challenge."
Goold joins a roll-call of young and alternative directors including Penny Woolcock and Fiona Shaw as well as the veteran Jonathan Miller.
Shaw, who made her directorial debut at the ENO last year with Vaughan Williams's Riders to the Sea, will return with Elegy For Young Lovers by Hans Werner Henze to a libretto partly by WH Auden. It has not been performed in London for 20 years. And filmmaker Woolcock, who has just made her stage opera debut with Doctor Atomic, returns with Bizet's The Pearl Fishers.
After his first ENO production in 13 years with La Bohème this year, Miller will follow it with Donizetti's The Elixir Of Love.
John Berry said: "We are clearly building an audience which has an appetite for unusual projects."
