Into the Little Hill at Opera North

The Opera Group, London Sinfonietta and ROH2 present a UK tour of George Benjamin's first work for stage, Into the Little Hill.

Desperate to shore up a flagging public vote, a morally bankrupt politician promises to exterminate a town's plague of rats. A faceless stranger arrives and offers his services; but when The Mayor refuses to pay, his actions have terrible repercussions for the town's population.

Into the Little Hill is a contemporary version of The Pied Piper fable that deals with corruption in society and the power of music. George Benjamin's first stage work is a collaboration with one of Britain's finest dramatists Martin Crimp and was premiered to critical acclaim in 2006. The Daily Telegraph wrote "I have never heard or seen anything so startlingly or brilliantly original; 'Masterpiece' is not a word to fling about, but I'm tempted".

The double bill includes another landmark in the development of contemporary music theatre, Harrison Birtwistle's boisterous and highly enjoyable Down by the Greenwood Side to a text by Michael Nyman. This new staging transposes the traditional rural folk motifs of death and renewal to an urban setting.