Middlesbrough’s

 Royal Visitors

Royally Entertained

North East Opera, performing at Regent Cinema, Redcar

Scott Hunter

14 February 2024

Yesterday’s visit by Charles and Camilla proved to be a great day out for reporters and photographers from the Gazette. Their livestream, with literally dozens of photos joined together with the occasional bit of text, showed the crowds in Centre Square, King and Queen walking among them, meeting Rona Grafton who was celebrating her 100^th birthday, and photo ops at Teesworks and the airport.



At 14.34, however,  there is an entirely different picture, with a less than illuminating text below it:

Source:  Teesside Live, 13 February 2025

The photo shows a group of performers on stage in a room. The only other people in the photo are the king and queen. No explanation of who the choir is, or why they were there, or even where the picture was taken. In fact, no other text at all.

Fortunately, as it happens, we know this choir. It’s North East Opera and it's more than a choir. And they had good reason to be there. North East Opera, sponsored by Middlesbrough Council among others, is a quite remarkable company.

In December we were invited to attend the premiere of one of their shows at the Regent Cinema, Redcar, a mixture of live entertainment and a short operatic film:

There’s no getting away from the fact that opera is a bit niche. Not everyone’s cup of tea and technically challenging for actors, especially when, as in the case of North East Opera, the cast is made up entirely of amateurs. As if that wasn’t enough, Haul Away, the show that was premiered that evening, was original material. Did they pull it off? Yes, they did. North East Opera, it turns out, can both challenge actors and entertain audiences.

According to the report on the day by Middlesbrough Council, “The King and Queen were first welcomed into the International Centre on Abingdon Road by the North East Opera, who sang ‘Welcome’ - a song performed in multiple languages.” It’s a shame that they didn’t have the opportunity to deliver excerpts from Haul Away, however, as it is quite topical, in an allegorical kind of a way, and thus entirely suitable for royal audiences who probably don’t like things that are too political. The notes to the opera describe the story as follows:

So, redevelopment on Teesside, pandora’s box, unknown consequences, some good, some bad …. 

Later in the day the royal couple were taken on a visit to the SeAH wind factory, presumably by a route avoiding some of the more controversial aspects of the Teesworks site, that the pandora’s box might be alluding to.



Mention of the song with lyrics in multiple languages, brings us to the other remarkable fact about North East Opera, which is its cast, some of whom will have been involved in writing it. NEO describes its members as follows:

It was clear on the night of the premiere that the company membership was international. Also that the abilities in question were quite considerable. (It was also clear that as opera goes, this was less ENO and more 7:84, which made it quite accessible). Some, we assumed were refugees. Another, whom we spoke to after the show, explained to us that she had become involved after the company was recommended to her by a local homeless charity, and she had been attending its workshops now for several years. Workshops, she went on to explain, centred around singing and performing excerpts from operas, mentioning Carmen and La Traviata as examples of material they had worked on. Not for the faint hearted. And not in English. 

In fact, towards the end of their set they had shown a video of what they said was their 2023 Christmas single, parts of which were sung in Latin!

The work of this company is therefore remarkable in a number of ways and wholly deserves the support it gets all too quietly from Middlesbrough Council and others.  But, because of that support its existence is, for the time being at least, secure. Its director, David Pisaro, explained to us that the one thing they really struggle with is in attracting publicity, a fact amply demonstrated by the local press yesterday (the Northern Echo’s coverage was even worse than Teesside Live. It published the photo but with no text at all). Such is the dismal state of public interest journalism in the Tees Valley.