Kangmin Justin Kim (Track Liling) and Mark Stone (René Gallimard) in rehearsal for the premiere of Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly on the Santa Fe Opera in 2022 (Photograph: Curtis Brown for the Santa Fe Opera)

4 music theatre works on the Barbican this Autumn present an intriguing curiosity within the cross-fertilisation between cultures, every taking components of Western tradition and seeing it by the lens of different classical traditions, variously combining Sufi, Ghanaian, Chinese language, Indian, Korean and Western classical traditions with Rolf Hind’s Sky in a Small Cage, Lear, Gorges Ocloo’s The Golden Stool, or the story of Nana Yaa Asantewaa, and Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly.

Mahogany Opera is presenting the UK premiere of composer Rolf Hind and librettist Dante Micheaux’s Sky in a Small Cage, directed by Frederic Wake-Walker. The work displays on the extraordinary life and works of the Thirteenth-century Sufi poet, Rumi and Hind’s rating attracts on his life-long fascination with musical devices and tonalities from central Europe, Java and India in addition to influences from Arabic and Turkish music.

Sky in a Small Cage is within the Barbican Corridor on 8 September, with Elaine Mitchener because the Narrator, Loré Lixenberg (Shaman of the Birds and Kerra, Rumi’s spouse), countertenor James Corridor and baritone/dancer Yannis François, with six ensemble singers and onstage musicians from Riot Ensemble carried out by Aaron Holloway-Nahum

Nationwide Changgeuk Firm of Korea have restaged Shakespeare’s King Lear as a standard Korean opera. The manufacturing debuted at Korea’s Nationwide Theatre in 2022 to some acclaim. Lear retells a well-recognized story within the type of Changgeuk, the culturally vital and artistically wealthy theatrical kind in Korea that blends music, dance, and drama to create immersive storytelling experiences rooted in Korean custom and heritage mixed with artistic up to date influences. 

Lear is on the Barbican Theatre from 3 to six October, with Pai Sam-shik (Trojan Girls), path and choreography by Jung Younger-doo, Pansori (conventional Korean people opera) rating by Han Seung-seok, with extra music by Okay-Pop producer Jung Jae-il (Parasite, Squid Recreation), set design by Lee Tae-sup.

 LOD muziektheater & Toneelhuis is presenting the UK premiere of Belgian/Ghanaian composer and director Gorges Ocloo’s Ghanaian ‘Afropera’ venture, The Golden Stool, or the story of Nana Yaa Asantewaa, which pays homage to the heroic lady who confronted colonial injustice in Ghana. To rejoice Asantewaa’s legacy by music, Ocloo deconstructs and reconstructs items from the all-white canon of Western classical music. Works by Handel, Bizet, Shostakovich, Verdi, Vivaldi, Beethoven, and Orff are reimagined by a Ghanaian lens with extra voices, drums and percussion, and carried out by a solid of girls designed to echo the heroic brigade.

The Golden Stool, or the story of Nana Yaa Asantewaa is on the Barbican Corridor on 14 October, with Nobulumko Mngxekeza-Nziramasanga (soprano), Nonkululeko Nkwinti (mezzo-soprano), Doris Bokongo Nkumu, Nathalie Bokongo Nkumu, Abena Biney Gloria, Titilayo Oliha, Saar-Niragire De Groof, Briana Stuart, Maïmouna Badjie and Somalia Williamson, 

The BBC Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with the Barbican is presenting the UK premiere of Huang Ruo’s opera of David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly. Based mostly on a real story of a French diplomat in China, the roles of Madame Butterfly and Pinkerton in Puccini’s opera are right here inverted. A diplomat on the French embassy in Beijing, falls in love with a wonderful Chinese language opera singer who two stunning secrets and techniques – the singer is, in fact a person (all feminine position in Chinese language opera are performed by males), and is spying for the Chinese language authorities. Within the opera the position is taken by a countertenor.

M. Butterfly premiered on the Santa Fe Opera in 2022 with Kangmin Justin Kim and Mark Stone, carried out by Carolyn Kuan, see the contrasting evaluations within the Dallas Morning Information and Opera At this time.

Huan Ruo’s M. Butterfly is on the Barbican Corridor on 25 October. Carolyn Kuan conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Kangmin Justin Kim (Track Liling), Mark Stone (René Gallimard), Fleur Barron (Comrade Chin/Shu Fung), Kevin Burdette Manuel (Toulon/Decide) and the BBC Singers.

Full particulars from the Barbican web site.