Screenings direct from The Royal Opera House at Norden Farm

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Screenings direct from London’s The Royal Opera House

The Royal Ballet and Opera in Covent Garden is the at the heart of London and British cultural life. The 2024/25 cinema season brings exciting new productions to the screen at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts. They will be showing between January and May 2025. Tickets are £16.

The Royal Opera: The Tales of Hoffman is Jacques Offenbach's dream-like opera.

Through the haze of the years, a poet remembers the women he loved. But when it comes to matters of the heart, nothing is as it seems. Particularly when the devil himself is involved…

Journeying back to his school days, Hoffman relives his childhood romance with Olympia, a model student in every sense. Doomed love follows him into adulthood, where the dancer, Antonia is taken from him too soon. Meanwhile, the sensual courtesan Giulietta has her own secret agenda. As memory and fantasy becomes blurred, will Hoffman find the enigmatic Stella before it’s too late? Screening on Wednesday 15 January at 6.45pm. Sung in French with subtitles.

The Royal Ballet: Swan Lake is classical ballet's most powerful tale of love, treachery and forgiveness. It’s screened on Thursday 27 February at 7.15pm. Prince Siegfried chances upon a flock of swans while out hunting. When one of the swans turns into a beautiful woman, Odette, he is enraptured. But she is under a spell that holds her captive, allowing her to regain her human form only at night. Doomed to remain a swan forever, Odette has but one way to break the sorcerer’s spell.

The Capulets and Montagues are sworn enemies in The Royal Ballet: Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare’s great love story is brilliantly retold through this modern ballet classic celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2025.

It is love at first sight for Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet when they meet each other at the Capulet ball, into which Romeo has snuck. The two fall in love and they profess their devotion to each other at Juliet’s balcony. They secretly get married.

The stakes are raised for the young couple when Romeo avenges the death of his friend Mercutio who has been killed by Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin. For this, Romeo is exiled from Verona. Meanwhile, Juliet’s parents are forcing her to marry another suitor. In order to be together, Romeo and Juliet must risk it all. See the screening on Thursday 20 March at 7.15pm.

The beautiful but icy princess Turandot will only marry a man who can correctly answer three riddles in Puccini’s captivating opera. The Royal Opera: Turandot is screened on Tuesday 1 April at 7.15pm.

Those who fail are brutally beheaded. But when an unknown prince arrives, the balance of power in Turandot’s court is forever shaken, as the mysterious stranger does what no other has been able to. Sung in Italian subtitles.

Sensuous contemporary ballet meets the energy of musical theatre in four distinctive short works. The Royal Ballet: Ballet to Broadway: Wheeldon Works is screened on Thursday 22 May at 7.15pm.

The four works show the remarkable choreographic range of The Royal Ballet's Artistic Associate, Christopher Wheeldon

Luminescent and shimmering, Fool’s Paradise marked the first of Wheeldon’s many collaborations with composer Joby Talbot. It was created in 2007 for Wheeldon’s own company, Morphoses, and first performed in 2012 by the Royal Ballet.

The wistful songs of Joni Mitchell set the scene for the UK premiere of The Two of Us, a duet of deep intimacy and yearning. It was created in 2020 for the Fall for Dance Festival in New York.

Us is a tender duet danced by two men. It was created in 2017 for BalletBoyz and is set to Keaton Henson’s music.

The Royal Ballet celebrates Wheeldon’s extraordinary success in musical theatre by performing the ballet scene from his Tony Award-winning musical An American in Paris. Set to Gershwin’s jazzy melodies, the musical is inspired by the 1951 film of the same name starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron.

Since 2008, The Royal Ballet and Opera’s cinema programme has brought over 120 opera and ballet broadcasts to audiences across the globe. It now reaches more than 1,500 cinemas from the UK to New Zealand, bringing the best of their resident companies to the big screen.