Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
Now here’s an offer you don’t get every day. How would you like to sing in an Opera North choir? From Couch to Chorus is a new initiative set up by Opera North to get people involved in singing in a programme of choruses from three operas; The Bartered Bride by Smetana, The Chorus of…
Read More
99 seconds. No, not my daily demands at school dinners or the number of attendants at a boxing bout which has got badly out of hand, but a challenge set by Yorkshire musician, George Reid, during lockdown. At the beginning of the restrictions in March, George set up a platform on his YouTube page the…
Read More
Will you stop making that racket!!!!!!!!!! Are you – and your neighbours – sick of hearing your little darling turning their amp up to 11 and doing some serious string bending on guitar during lockdown? Perhaps they have been making the most of that drum kit you thought would be a good idea the other…
Read More
If you think that you don’t like opera, take a look at this. Opera North are streaming Trouble in Tahiti by Leonard Bernstein on their YouTube channel from 7.00pm on Wednesday, 6th May until Monday, 1st June. This production was first performed at Leeds Grand Theatre in October, 2017 as part of their Little Greats…
Read More
One of the things I was looking forward to before the C word struck was a performance by The Orchestra of Opera North of Also Sprach Zarathustra, which was due to take place in Leeds Town Hall and Huddersfield Town Hall. They always say that you can tell if someone is cultured by how they…
Read More
Let me take you back to September 1956. There was a queue of young children waiting to start their school year, but it was not just the first year’s intake who felt nervous and excited about starting at a new school, it was all of them, as well as the teachers and even the Headmaster,…
Read More
It is not every day that I get to go to the world premier of a classical music piece but on Sunday, 23rd February I had just that privilege. The setting was Huddersfield Town Hall and the piece in question was Arya by Jasdeep Singh Degun. It is described as A Concerto for Sitar and…
Read More
To take us through the spring Opera North have a varied selection of events throughout the county catering for all ages and tastes. First up is Street Scene which continues at the Leeds Grand Theatre until 28th February when it moves to Theatre Royal Newcastle, The Lowry at Salford Quays and ends at Theatre Royal…
Read More
A governess is hired to look after mischievous brother and sister by their rich father, no, not Mary Poppins but Turn of the Screw. It would take more than a spoonful of sugar to make this opera go down in a most delightful way. That is not to say that it was bad, far from…
Read More
There is an old saying that a second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. If that is true I must be an incurable optimist as on Friday I had my second marriage in less than a week. After seeing The Marriage of Figaro by Opera North at the Grand Theatre on 1st February…
Read More