Opera North

So, Opera North has got itself into a nasty little pickle, with a community project in Bridlington. I’ve never really liked Opera North, not since players from its orchestra led an unnecessary walk-out during a session for A Symphony for Yorkshire. And judging by the latest scandal, its players aren’t the only ones with a total disregard for the creative process.


It seems Lee Hall, the writer of Billy Elliot, has refused to remove references to a character’s sexuality from his libretto for a community opera, because a school, who were chosen to perform as part of the piece, felt a homosexual character was not something its pupils were ready to embrace. The language was in no way graphic. The offending line was simply a character saying “I am queer. I prefer a lad to a lass.” Opera North, who organised the project, are trying to blame everyone other than themselves. In fact, a recent statement, attempts to flag the problem up as simply an unfortunate argument between Hall and the Local Education Authority that they were powerless to prevent. But this doesn’t ring true. Here’s why I feel that Opera North needs to fall very squarely on its own sword...

1) Homophobia is an issue. It wrecks lives and it causes huge amounts of unnecessary pain. Every piece of research that has been carried out on the subject suggests that the only way to deal with homophobia is by “normalising” or “usualising” it within schools. By pandering to a school with old-fashioned or inappropriate views on the subject, Opera North is guilty of homophobia. They should have sussed out the school right at the start of the process, told them the kinds of issues that the work would be exploring, and been prepared to walk away in favour of a more enlightened establishment, with a more intelligent head teacher. The bottom line is that the gay community has been offended, and Opera North needs to apologise.

2) Censorship. We do not live in communist East Germany. There is no place for the censorship of art in this country. Very young children are subjected to all sorts of inappropriate images on the television and on the Internet on a daily basis. Just as it’s the parents’ duty to turn the television off if something gets a bit racy, it’s a school’s duty to withdraw from a project if it’s not for them. It cannot expect to change the work of art itself, or hold a creative process to ransom until it gets its way. An organisation like Opera North should be backing its creative team. If you want a well-respected writer like Hall to work for you, then you have to accept what he writes. There was, after all, a gay character who wore frocks in Billy Elliot, so he was hardly exploring new terrain.

3) Mismanagement. However you look at this, Opera North needs to take responsibility for wasting tens of thousands of pounds of public funding. It also needs to take responsibility for the scores of people in Bridlington who no longer have a work to perform that they’ve spent months rehearsing. Part of organising a community project like this is identifying potential problems before they emerge. I cannot understand how a school would be allowed to rehearse for months on end without, one assumes, seeing a full script of the piece they’re performing. One also assumes that the written material was approved by Opera North before being handed to the school. Schools pull out of community projects all the time, generally because their teachers can’t be bothered to go the extra mile required to give their kids an opportunity of a lifetime. I can’t understand, therefore, why an entire community opera ground to a halt because a single school pulled out. Mismanagement.

We live in troubled times. There is so little money out there for community projects at the moment. The overall figure of this Bridlington opera has been put at £100K, which is a bewildering amount to go up in flames. To put things in context, I made A1: The Road Musical for £45K, and I think the Symphony for Yorkshire came in at about the same amount. Someone, somewhere along the line is seriously taking the mickey. Heads need to roll at Opera North, and their right to have public funding needs to be questioned. If a company in the private sector suddenly made a mistake to the tune of £100K, they could well go under, and I am sick and tired of living in a country that continually bails out its inept workers.

I received a text message today which read "due to new legislation, those struggling with debt can now apply to have it written off." Whatever happened to taking responsibility for your own actions?

Friday 5th July 1661, and Pepys had very little to say for himself. He worked at the office and then went to visit Sir William Batten, where there was much merriment... and a venison pasty.