A celebration of one of the largest community opera projects in the North East, and the largest ever undertaken by renowned international company, Opera North takes place on Wednesday 23 March.
The event will take place at Shildon’s Locomotion, where an exhibition is currently on display telling the story of the opera and how it was made.
Song of our Heartland was written by County Durham-born composer Will Todd with a storyline created by director Caroline Clegg, following a series of workshops held in community venues across the south and west of the County early in 2019.
Local residents in Bishop Auckland, Barnard Castle, Crook, Hamsterley (Teesdale), Wolsingham and St John’s Chapel (Weardale) were invited to share their stories and memories, all of which were woven cleverly into a storyline telling of the county’s mining and railway history and looking forward with hope through the eyes of young people.
The project was commissioned by Barnard Castle-based arts charity Northern Heartlands as part of their former Great Place Scheme funding from Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund (formerly Heritage Lottery Fund).
It was intended to be performed to a live audience at Locomotion over two nights in May 2020, with a local community choir performing along side professional opera soloists and the Chorus and full Orchestra of Opera North.
With the outbreak of the Covid pandemic and lockdown, plans for the performances were abruptly halted.
But Northern Heartlands’ Director, Jill Cole was determined that the work put in by the community, who had been rehearsing every week, would not go to waste.
She succeeded in persuading Opera North to re-purpose the funds to create a film of the full opera, filmed over two days at Locomotion and the surrounding area in the late summer of 2020.
“It was a logistical nightmare,” recalls Jill.
“We had to wait until lockdown eased, but because of social distancing rules all the community chorus had to be recorded individually, or in family bubbles.
“Opera North’s orchestra was recorded playing socially distanced, in Leeds Town Hall and we only had two days to complete the filming on site, mostly outdoors, all socially distanced, with no rehearsal.
“It poured with rain on one of the days but we carried on regardless!”
The film is now available to view on YouTube at the Northern heartlands channel by searching for ‘Song of Our Heartland’.
The exhibition telling the story of how it was created is on display at Locomotion until the end of April this year.
Shildon & District's local community newspaper.
