ENO to stage Porgy and Bess and collaborate with Theatre Royal Stratford East in new season

Porgy and Bess is to be performed by the English National Opera for the first time in the company's history.

The Gershwin brothers' opera will be conducted by John Wilson and have a cast including Eric Greene, Nicole Cabell, Latonia Moore and Nadine Benjamin alongside an ensemble of 40 singers.

The piece was first performed in 1935 and is an adaptation of DuBose Heyward's novel of the same name. It includes the song "Summertime" and was adapted into a film in 1959. The show will run in October.

The company will also be collaborating with Theatre Royal Stratford East in Juley 2019 on a project with director Lyndsey Turner who will direct Noye's Fludde. The piece will bring together professional performers with children and community groups from across Newham.

The Unicorn Theatre will collaborate with ENO on Purni Morell's production of Dido in May 2019, inspired by Dido and Aeneas, aimed specifically at teenage audiences.

Elsewhere in the season, Adena Jacobs will stage a 'radical, feminine interpretation of Salome' in late September, with Alison Cook in the title role. Wolfgang Tillmans will also design Benjamin Britten's War Requiem in November, directed by Daniel Kramer in a full staging – the first in the UK – while Old Vic associate Max Webster will direct The Merry Widow in March 2019.

In a world premiere, Iain Bell and Emma Jenkins' Jack the Ripper: The Women of Whitechapel will be staged in March 2019, featuring singers including Dame Josephine Barstow, Susan Bullock, Janis Kelly, Lesley Garrett and Marie McLaughlin. The piece focuses on some of the women from the legend of the London murderer.