A Regency romp packed with charm and humour, Country Matters features some of Haydn’s most colourful arias and ensembles, together with the skilful orchestral writing typical of the composer. The end result has been described as “Cold Comfort Farm meets Pride and Prejudice, set to a lively, lovely allegro”. Country Matters will be directed of Liam Steel, whose previous work includes Complicité, DV8, Frantic Assembly and Stan Won’t Dance.

Handel’s Teseo is ostensibly the story of the hero Theseus, though the central character is really the formidable enchantress Medea. With sparkling arias and colourful scoring for strings, oboes, recorders, bassoons and horns, Teseo is a gripping drama of sorcery and desperate love. Teseo will be directed by English Touring Opera’s general director James Conway, whose previous productions include Ariodante, Alcina, Eugene Onegin and Tolomeo. It will star Derek Lee Ragin as Egeo, a role that he recorded with Marc Minkowski. He will be joined by American newcomer Valerie Komar as Teseo and British sopranos Gail Pearson and Jeni Bern.

Teseo will be performed in Italian with the original English wordbook as surtitles. In spring 2008, ETO will tour new productions of Don Giovanni, Anna Bolena and Carlisle Floyd’s modern American opera Susannah. ETO’s production of Susannah will be the first professional UK touring production, with Donna Bateman singing the title role. The tour will open at the Hackney Empire in March 2008. English Touring Opera aims to present vibrant, innovative high-quality opera to existing and new audiences in communities across England.

Every year it gives about 100 performances to nearly 50,000 people across the country. ETO visits 22 regional venues where arts provision, especially opera of such quality, is limited, a wider coverage than any other national opera company in Britain. ETO has frequently led the way in developing new opera that engages with fresh audiences. In 2004 they teamed up with the Young Vic to present a new touring production of Jonathan Dove’s Tobias and the Angel, and in June 2007 ETO performed A House on the Moon, a community opera involving musicians from the UK, Afghanistan, Iraq and India and local communities around Wolverhampton.

Teseo and Country Matters open at the Hackney Empire in October, and go on to Scarborough, Kendal, Cambridge, Bath, Exeter, Yeovil, Snape Malvern, Buxton and Lincoln. Further details from www.englishtouringopera.org.uk