Teesside gets engagement record for school opera scheme

The initiative is designed to break down barriers between children and opera

Pupils from 70 Teesside schools are to take part in singing sessions with the Royal Opera House (ROH).

Over the coming months young people will be taught to sing The Magic Flute, accompanied by professional opera singers and an orchestra.

Demand has been so high the region now holds the biggest engagement record with the ROH's outreach programme.

Tees Valley Music Service (TVMS) said the number of primary schools taking part was both "shocking and amazing".

"Mental barriers are removed"

A professional singer himself Tom Powell from TVMS said the scheme was about "removing barriers" to young peoples' aspirations in music.

"It sounds grand but with work like this mental barriers are removed from children to what they can achieve.

"It raises aspirations and allows them to say they've sung an opera before, and taken part in a performance," he added.

The initiative starts with about 100 teachers from the schools across Stockton, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Darlington attending digital training delivered by the Royal Opera House.

Supported by TVMS, the teachers then help children sing The Magic Flute by Mozart, before artists from the ROH arrive on Teesside to join up to 20 schools for more workshops in November and February.

It culminates with a final abridged performance sung by the children in June next year which will see them joined by the ROH chamber orchestra and a number of soloists.

Over the next few months hundreds of primary pupils across Teesside will learn opera songs

Tom Powell returned home to Teesside after studying music in London. He said he had watched a performance of the opera sung in German among a children-only audience and said they were "enthralled from beginning to end."

He added: "Opera is for everyone and children instinctively pick up on what's happening in the story through their emotions as the composer would have originally wanted."

Amy McGann, Head of the Royal Opera House National Schools Programme, which funds the programme, said it had been designed to "build up creative confidence" and to "inspire creativity" in the classroom.