The Barbican will host a run of Opera North's new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel. It will also present a collaboration between sculptor and artist Anthony Gormley and composer Hofesh Shechter called Survivor; the first-ever U.K. performances of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach; the return of the Ninagawa Company with Cymbeline; a new work created by Toni Morrison, Peter Sellars and Rokia Traoré called Desdemona; and a season of ten works by Pina Bausch, co-presented with Sadler's Wells.
Survivor, running Jan. 12-14, will feature an original score by Shechter, set within a visual landscape by Gormley. For the first time Shechter focuses his creative energy on the music and its performance with a 30-strong live band, 200 drummers and five male performers, in the Barbican Theatre.
Improbable's The Devil and Mister Punch begins performances Feb. 2, prior to an official opening Feb. 7, for a run through Feb. 25 in the Pit. Devised by Julian Crouch (who designed Broadway's The Addams Family) and the Company, the show is Punch and Judy but as presented by Messrs. Harvey and Hovey, a pair of broken vaudevillians reduced to presenting a puppet show that goes wildly off-course.
Cheek by Jowl's 'Tis Pity She’s a Whore begins performances Feb. 16, prior to an official opening Feb. 21, for a run through March 10 in the Silk Street Theatre. Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod return to Jacobean tragedy, following previous productions of The Changeling and The Duchess of Malfi.
Complicite's The Master and Margarita begins performances March 15, prior to an official opening March 20, for a run through April 7 in the Barbican Theatre. Simon McBurney directs a new English-language stage adaptation of Bulgakov's novel. Paul Rhys and Sinéad Matthews join an ensemble cast of Complicite performers from many of the Company's previous shows. Benedict Andrews' production of Botho Strauss's Gross und Klein (Big and Small) for Sydney Theatre Company will begin performances April 13, prior to an official opening April 14, for a run through April 29. Sydney Theatre Company's co-artistic director Cate Blanchett will return to the London stage to star in it. Co-commissioned by the Barbican, it has a new English text by Martin Crimp. First staged in 1978, Gross und Klein revolves around Lotte (Blanchett), who following a break-up with her husband, finds herself a stranger to her own society and embarks on a search for human connection and a quest for belonging.
Glass and Wilson's Einstein on the Beach will run May 4-13 in the Barbican Theatre in a new staging of a production last seen in 1992. It is being reconstructed for a major international tour that begins in the spring of 2012, bringing this groundbreaking work to new audiences and a new generation.
The Ninagawa Company will bring their new production of Cymbleline to the Barbican Theatre as part of the World Shakespeare Festival, running May 29-June 2.
Desdemona will run July 19 and 20 only in the Barbican Hall, also presented as part of the World Shakespeare Festival. Singer/songwriter Rokia Traoré and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, two women of African and African-American origin, have come together to create a work inspired by an "invisible" character from one of Shakespeare’s most racially charged plays, responding to Peter Sellars’ 2009 Othello.
The Barbican is joining forces with Sadler's Wells to present a month-long season of ten works by Pina Bausch, to be performed by Tanztheater Wuppertal at the two venues between June 6 and July 9.
Following the success this year of Lincoln Center's production of South Pacific, the Barbican will next year also host a production of another Rodgers and Hammerstein classic: Carousel will begin performances Aug. 15 prior to an official opening Aug. 16, for a run through Sept. 15. Produced by Opera North, using a full-scale Broadway orchestra and operatic-trained voices, it is directed by Jo Davies.
Mademoiselle Julie, starring Juliette Binoche in the title role, will run Sept. 20-29. Co-commissioned by the Barbican and originally produced by the Festival d’Avignon, Frédéric Fisbach directs a French-language modern-day take on the timeless themes of desire, love and the constraints of social convention.
For more details, visit ww.barbican.org.uk.
