Announcing New Production of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Opera UR_ Directed by Netia Jones in May-June 2027 at the Royal Opera House in London
Photo by Anna Maggy. High resolution photos available here.
Announcing New Production of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Opera UR_
Directed by Netia Jones, Associate Director of The Royal Opera
The Royal Ballet & Opera
“a leading voice in contemporary music” – The Guardian
27 May – 2 June 2027
Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House
Bow Street, Covent Garden, London
More Information
Composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s chamber opera UR_ will have its UK premiere in a new production directed and designed by Netia Jones, Associate Director of The Royal Opera, from 27 May to 2 June 2027 at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre. UR_ is composed by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, who also created the narrative, words, and phonetic textures with title and additional text by Mette Karlsvik. The one-hour opera was commissioned in 2015 by Far North in cooperation with Theater Trier in Germany, Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, and the Norwegian National Opera. These performances of UR_ follow The Royal Ballet’s performances in 2023 and 2026 of Wayne McGregor's Untitled, danced to Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s METACOSMOS and CATAMORPHOSIS.
UR_ explores the awakening of the primal core of human nature (the UR_), having been pushed into hibernation, while simultaneously observing the trajectory that led to this distance from the UR_. Various aspects of these two main narratives are presented through the singers which together form a trilogy, a metaphorical persona portraying different sides of this struggle. These elements, which merge and divide throughout the piece, are tied together through the presence of an ambiguous central being, and the grand piano presents a protective Mother figure character. The trilogy, the singers, communicate through phonetic sound structures which go beyond the limits of what can be conveyed in language, trying to find their voice, to be heard. The work ultimately asks whether humanity can ever truly reconnect with its roots and return to the UR_, reminding us of the fragility of our existence.
This new production of UR_ will be directed and designed by The Royal Opera’s Associate Director Netia Jones, an award-winning director, designer and video artist working internationally in opera, theatre, concerts and immersive installation projects. Jones created the film-and-theatre blended Orphée by Philip Glass for English National Opera, the world’s first opera in hyper reality Current, Rising for the Royal Opera House, and the acclaimed live animation production of Where the Wild Things Are with Maurice Sendak and Oliver Knussen for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Aldeburgh Festival and the Barbican. She has conceived and created multiple new works including the Ivor Novello and Olivier Award-nominated opera Least Like the Other, Searching for Rosemary Kennedy, with composer Brian Irvine for Irish National Opera and The Royal Opera, and the genre-defying Everlasting Light, a site-specific performance with music by composers from Gesualdo to Ligeti and projection mapping onto Sizewell Nuclear Power Station, for the Aldeburgh Festival.
Composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s “seemingly boundless textural imagination” (The New York Times) and striking sound world has made her “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music” (NPR). Her music is composed as much by sounds and nuances as by harmonies and lyricism – written as an ecosystem of sounds, where materials continuously grow in and out of each other so that the familiar can become abstract and the abstract feel familiar.
Thorvaldsdottir’s current season features performances of her music in more than 17 countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. This season, Thorvaldsdottir’s works will be performed by 20 orchestras in 13 countries, with several of them – including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra – performing multiple works.
Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s music is widely performed internationally and has been commissioned by many of the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles, and arts organizations – such as the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Danish String Quartet, BBC Proms, and Carnegie Hall. Her “detailed and powerful” (The Guardian) orchestral writing has garnered her awards from the New York Philharmonic, Lincoln Center, the Nordic Council, and the UK’s Ivors Academy. Anna Thorvaldsdottir is Composer-in-Residence with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra for 2025-2026. In 2024-2025, she was the Tonhalle Orchestra’s Creative Chair. She was Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra 2018-2023 and is currently an Artist in Association. In 2023, she was in residence at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music. In 2024, she was selected as a winner of the CHANEL Next Prize. She holds a PhD (2011) from the University of California in San Diego and is now based in the London area.
For Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s complete performance calendar, visit www.annathorvalds.com/performances.
All of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s orchestral music and many of her other works are recorded on the Sono Luminus label, and featured on Apple Music’s Anna Thorvaldsdottir Essentials Playlist.
The music of Anna Thorvaldsdottir is published by Chester Music, part of Wise Music Group.
For more information about Anna Thorvaldsdottir: www.annathorvalds.com/bio