Black Spiders Up North

As I type, Opera North Youth Company are at their summer retreat in Ampleforth, North Yorkshire, diligently working on a production of The Secret of the Black Spider, which will open Opera North's new season at the end of September. I spent a day with them this week, and it's a long time since I've been so interested to sit in an opera rehearsal, with so much thoughtful input coming from the committed teenage cast and their inspirational directors.

This opera has had a long history. Originally commissioned by Kent Opera for a production by students of Frank Hooker School, Canterbury in 1985, it has had quite a few performances, here and abroad, over the years. Everyone, whether a school, a youth theatre group or a professional opera company, has made their own version of the score - out of necessity, because resources vary so much. In 2008 I visited a production at the Hamburg State Opera which seemed to me the apotheosis of this trend, beautifully adapted by Benjamin Gordon, with a whole symphony orchestra in attendance (contrasting pleasantly with my memories of the squawky little wind group I'd started out with originally.)

It's this "Hamburg Version" which Opera North will premiere in an English version, in the Grand Theatre, Leeds next month. Up at Ampleforth, things were already in full swing, with multiple improvised spiders constantly in action (PICTURED).