The Winter's Tale

Rory Kinnear makes his directorial debut at the ENO

Following his star turn in the Threepenny Opera as Mack The Knife, Shakespeare veteran Rory Kinnear takes his love of the opera one step further in 2017 when he helms a brand-new production of The Winter's Tale by ENO's resident composer Ryan Wigglesworth, with a cast of talented opera stars, three of whom are ENO protogees. Kinnear's first foray into directing, he won an Olivier Award in 2014 for his role as Iago in the National Theatre's production of Othello. This production marks a new and daring era at the ENO, following a major new restructuring brought on by changes in their public funding.

What is it about?

This brand-new and exciting operatic staging of Shakespeare's courtly intrigue drama focuses on a king's errant jealousy and paranoia that his queen Hermione has been unfaithful to him. Ordering that the infant daughter be abandoned to the Fates, the child grows up amongst the bohemian folk to be a beautiful and true woman, betrothed to a shepherd; her mother Hermione died early on of a broken heart, leaving Perdita unaware of her noble birth.

In the meantime, Leontes has discovered through the Oracle that Hermione was innocent all along, and the child Perdita was in fact his daughter. To compound the tragedy of the situation, his older son dies from depression, brought on by the accusations against his mother. Can Leontes redeem himself and find his daughter before she is lost to him forever?