Described in press materials as "a stage play for a Baroque orchestra, two sopranos and an actor," it is being presented as part of the Barbican's annual "Great Performers" series, which will also see American director Peter Sellars staging György Kurtág's Kafka Fragments, with soprano Dawn Upshaw in the role of a housewife performing daily tasks, and violinist Geoff Nuttall in the role of a street musician, on Nov. 11.

Other plans for the Barbican's new season include the returns of director Peter Brook and Robert Lepage, as well as further seasons for Cheek by Jowl and Amsterdam's Toneelgroep, and the returns of both the acclaimed National Theatre of Scotland production of Blackwatch and Complicite's Shun-kin.

Brook, whose last theatre work at the Barbican was 11 and 12 earlier this year, will stage a new production of Mozart's The Magic Flute, in a new adaptation commissioned by the Barbican, that will premiere in March 2011.

Lepage, who has previously brought The Dragons' Trilogy, The Anderson Project, The Far Side of the Moon and Lipsynch to the Barbican, will return with The Blue Dragon, a sequel to the six-hour epic The Dragons' Trilogy, which picks up the lives of two of its characters 20 years on. It will be presented at the Barbican in February 2011.

Cheek by Jowl has announced that its Russian ensemble will present a new production of The Tempest at the Barbican in March 2011. Toneelgroep Amsterdam, seen at the Barbican last year with its production of Shakespeare's Roman Tragedies, returns in February 2011 with The Antonioni Project, a stage adaptation of Italian film-maker Michelangelo Antonioni's films L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse. As in Ivo van Hove's production of Roman Tragedies, cameras are positioned onstage and will play a vital role in the production.

The Barbican will also host return seasons of Simon McBurney's Complicite production of Shun-ki in October 2010, and the Olivier Award-winning National Theatre of Scotland production of Gregory Burke's Black Watch for a six-week run in November 2010. The Barbican is also collaborating with the National Theatre of Scotland on a new, very Scottish production of Peter Pan that will be staged in May 2010, relocating the story to Victorian Edinburgh; and a new site-specific production, Beautiful Burnout, that will explore the brutal world of young Scottish boxers, to be staged at Bethnal Green's York Hall in September 2010.

Other theatre events being promoted by the Barbican include a new production of John Adams' Broadway-style opera I Was Looking at the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky, set in the aftermath of an earthquake in California in 1994, that will be staged at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, from July 2-17. Beckett's prize-winning You Me Bum Bum Train is to be staged at Bethnal Green's LEB building from July 5-24, and Footsbarn's Sorry! will be staged in a big-top in Victoria Park from June 19 to July 4. Also, Boy Blue Entertainment will return to the Barbican in July with performances by their youth company, Da Bratz, plus a new full-length hip-hop show, Over the Edge. Canadian company Catalyst Theatre will present Nevermore, showcasing the gothic dreamscape of Edgar Allan Poe's life and death, in the Barbican Theatre from July 6-10.

For further information visit www.barbican.org.uk.