Northern Stage artistic director Alan Lyddiard was probably the only person in the North-East with enough experience to take on such an ambitious project as railway opera Blaze. He talks to VIV HARDWICK about the highs and lows of creating a massive community opera

BLAZE director Alan Lyddiard feels that the Darlington opera will be magical, but regrets that lack of support from Network Rail and railway companies has probably cost Tees Valley some national interest.

The Northern Stage artistic director, brought in as the North-East's one person capable of putting the massive project together, feels that mainstream TV would have been queuing up to film an opera using the mainline railway as the backdrop for the project.

He says: "The Darlington-Stockton railway is a very, very big story, although Stockton Railway Station is disregarded, and at one point I wanted to do the opera as a journey from Stockton to Darlington. But to get permission to do that and get Network Rail involved and trains involved was a job too great for me to deal with. I just couldn't win that one.

"Putting the opera on rails was a great idea and to have achieved that would have been fantastic but Network Rail is in a mess. . . they haven't even answered one of our phone calls. This was a great opportunity to do something for the community and with the community that was very, very exciting and actually they haven't, but it's their loss.

GNER turned down the idea of siting the opera on Darlington Station. Arriva Trains were initially enthusiastic and talked at one time of selling opera tickets which looked like train tickets as people boarded a train to North Road.

"In the end I gave up and just decided to use North Road. At one stage I was going to book 300 train tickets a night from Darlington Station to North Road but the train didn't run at quite the right time.

"I still think it will be magical because we've seen the big red doors of B and Q nearby and I've done something like that in front of the stage and at one time they open to reveal a train arriving and people getting off. I think that will be exciting for the audience."

This is the one surviving link with the rail network as one of the opera's characters called Moz alights at North Road station to take part in the performance. But there will be a car standing by if the regular Arriva train service between Darlington to Saltburn is delayed.

Alan adds: "I think it would have got completely national coverage if we'd have been able to use the trains more. The railway preservation society have been 100 per cent supportive and moved rolling stock and cranes, which I think are beautiful, in place as scenery."

"I also want people to know that we still want them to get involved, even at this late stage, to give us ideas and help us in any way they want to. There is still time for the people of Darlington to be involved because then it's a real Darlington event."

Lyddiard's introduction to community opera was a 1992-3 project called Cullercoats Tommy where Northern Sinfonia, Folkworks and Dance City and Northern Stage celebrated the arrival of the Tall Ships Race.

This time Lyddiard pays tribute to Darlington's Railway Museum which he dubs "very supportive and very involved in planning it with us".

His hardest job has been retaining the interest of scores of youngsters aged between 11 and 16 from all over the region.

Alan comments: "To say to young people at the start 'do you want to be in an opera?'

seemed like madness. We did a summer school, Suzannah Clarke and myself in the Arc at Stockton and that was the start of it.

We got 50 young people and from that moment they were the core group and we've worked with them over a year to involve them in the creation of the opera and in the performance."

Besides composer Will Todd and librettist Toby Sattersthwaite, Alan picks out opera star Suzannah Clarke as the key person inspiring the event.

"She's our creative mentor and our advocate from the beginning. She's going to be central to the performance by playing the mother role. She also teaching a lot of the children on an individual basis.

"Come July 5 we start to move onto the site and by July 10 we'll have the set finished and everything ready for the cast to perform the opera in this incredibly, extraordinary setting."

The opera will also see a crash involving a real car as part of a storyline where rail pioneer George Stephenson comes back to life when a bell is stolen from the museum and past and present collide.

Alan adds: "In a way it is about the past recognising that the future exists and that the future is where we are. Although our heritage and history are good we have to recognise we are living in a day when we have to think about the future. To me the opera is about a harmony between the present and the past.

"The title Blaze is okay, it says it all, and gives us an excuse for a lot of fire and I can imagine a kind of celebration at the end, blazing through to the future. It's relevant to the steelworks, it's relevant to the industrial history of the place but it's also about fire in our souls and fire in our hearts. It can be slightly banal if you're not careful but if we're light-hearted with it I think it's great."

Northern Stage certainly has the pedigree to tackle Blaze and Alan says:

"We've done this kind of thing before, I'm very committed to the idea of community and participation, which is essential to the mission of Northern Stage. We produce work, we present other people's work in Newcastle and we tour all over the country and in Europe and more and more outside Europe.

"We have full-time performers who have skills in singing, acting, dancing and film makers and writers and these people are crucial to the making of the piece. They are learning it now so they can pass it on to others."

Published: 24/06/2004