White Light illuminates English Touring Opera’s 2025 season

English Touring Opera’s 2025 tour travels across the UK, with White Light’s technology elevating stages from grand concert halls to community venues

Images Richard Hubert Smith

Since 1979, English Touring Opera (ETO) has championed accessibility, bringing live opera to towns and cities around the UK. With a mission to make opera available to all, ETO engages over 40,000 people annually. For its 2025 season, ETO presents The Elixir of Love and The Rape of Lucretia, with White Light (WL) supplying technical support for lighting designer Jamie Platt and production electrician Joe Kirk.

From the start, Platt’s approach to lighting an opera has been deeply rooted in musical storytelling. “Lighting becomes a second layer of narrative,” Platt explained. “This sensitivity is vividly expressed in The Elixir of Love, where a pivotal aria sees the lighting transform to reflect Nemorino’s emotional world.” Meanwhile, in Lucretia, Platt’s lighting takes on a more stylised role. “We use deep orange tones on white muslin drapes to visually disrupt a feminine space, reflecting the antagonist’s intrusion and the opera’s thematic tension.”

After careful planning, it is up to Kirk to ensure Platt’s design is faithfully executed in every venue. “ETO is all about making opera accessible,” Joe noted. “That means transforming non-traditional spaces into fully realised theatrical environments.” His work begins with detailed venue assessments and continues through close collaboration with Platt to maintain consistency across the tour.

Touring presents unique challenges, particularly when moving between traditional theatres and concert halls. To meet the demands of varied infrastructure, the lighting rig is designed to be largely self-contained. “Using LED fixtures not only supports ETO’s environmental goals but also reduces the infrastructure we need to tour,” said Kirk. The rig includes ETC Halcyon Titanium, Ayrton Diablo, and ETC Lustr 2 fixtures, well-suited to Platt’s boom-focused approach.

The team praised WL’s products, particularly the Halcyon units for their output, diffusion options and clear build methods. Beyond the technology itself, Platt and Kirk also commended WL’s steady customer support throughout the tour.

As ETO continues its journey to communities across the UK, WL remains a consistent partner to organisations of all scales, including its recent work with Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Find out more at whitelight.ltd.uk