'We are making opera that looks and sounds like Bradford'

It has been sung around the globe in multiple languages and voted the greatest opera of all time, but The Marriage of Figaro has never been performed in a Bradford accent - until now.

Translated into Yorkshire dialect by poet Ian McMillan, reorchestrated by Ben Crick and directed by Alex Chisholm, the Mozart classic has been reinvented for the third Bradford Opera Festival.

It's a project festival co-founder Crick has wanted to create since he first picked up a cello at primary school.

"The idea for years has been to create a festival that takes this glorious art form that I've believed in since I was a kid and deliver it to anyone and everyone in where I'm from and where I still work," he says.

Now in its third year, the Bradford Opera Festival has performed The Barber of Seville – also in Yorkshire dialect – and The Last Machine Breaker a new opera composed by Ben Crick and written by Kamal Khan.

"We make opera with and for the people of Bradford in a uniquely Bradford way," explains Chisholm.

"We did Barber of Seville set in 1960s Bradford and now The Marriage of Figaro follows that up. It's five years later, it's the same characters, and it's in the early 1970s in Bradford."

The creative team chose the era because it was "a time of big social change in Bradford".

In the 1960s, Bradford's South Asian population grew substantially as immigrants arrived to work in the woollen mills. According to The Runnymede Trust the number of Pakistanis in the city rose from roughly 12,000 in 1964 to more than 21,000 by 1970.

This is reflected in the language and musical choices, says Crick. His reorchestration has blended western and Indian classical instruments and sections are sung in Urdu and Punjabi, translated by Kauser Mukhtar.

"If you go out in Bradford, you'll hear Yorkshire dialects with bits of languages from the Asian sub-continent mingled into everyday speech," he says.

But the Beaumarchais story itself needed no changes. The tale of the unfaithful count who tries to seduce the servant girl who wants to marry her own love is "all very romcom meets early Bollywood", says Crick.

"It's about power, sex and gender. It's not like they're unrelated today is it?"

For the singers it's the Bradford "ur" sound - in words such as 'no' or 'show' - that's been the biggest change to the traditional received pronunciation that English opera is sung in.

American tenor Bradyn Debysingh, who is playing Don Basilio/Don Cuzio, describes it as "that bloody ur sound".

"We both have nice spread vowels in our accents," he says when I pronounce it 'The Marriage of Figarur'.

Welsh baritone John Ieuan Jones, who is singing Figaro, has found singing in a Yorkshire dialect "more engaging".

"Often in college we're told to sing RP but I'm Welsh so that already is a challenge," he says.

"Actually the vowels really do work with singing because a lot of it is the ur sound.

"Often we are told as opera singers to head for that sound because it's a nice way to kind of find that neutral sound, that kind of relaxed neutral sound."

As well as two almost sold-out dates at Bradford Arts Centre, the show is touring to Slung Low in Leeds, Skipton Town Hall and Wilton's Music Hall in London.

The festival's version of The Barber of Seville, performed at St George's Hall in November 2023, was described as "certainly unforgettable" by Guardian critic Fiona Maddocks and a "fascinating experiment", by The Telegraph's Mark Brown.

But will Bradford Opera Festival attract Bradford opera-goers – a community that even Chisholm admits is hard to find.

"There isn't an opera audience. We know from our own surveys that around 80% to 95% of audiences for our work are new to opera. People are coming because they're intrigued," she says.

They hope audiences will come because they are familiar with the "Bard of Barnsley" Ian McMillan and want to know more – but it helps that tickets are also "pay as you feel".

Bradford Arts Centre, previously known as Kala Sangam - runs a £1 entry ticket scheme. Audiences chose to pay £1, £5 for a standard ticket or £10 for a "supporter" ticket.

It is an ethos Crick believes is important for attracting new audiences.

"We want to be opening up opera to people. Times are hard, people are a bit skint. We don't want people not coming because they can't afford the ticket. It's as cheap as we can possibly make it," he says.

"There's a real statement around making opera that looks and sounds like Bradford - in this accent, in these languages, it is high culture. It doesn't have to sound posh."

Crick was not born into opera. Brought up in a family with no musical background, he went to a comprehensive school in Huddersfield. It just so happened that his dad had an LP of The Marriage of Figaro.

"None of my mates go to opera. I grew up wanting to be a rugby league player and didn't make it," he says.

"I played the cello because when I were a kid, a woman came into school and played in assembly and said 'Who fancies playing cello?' and I put my arm up and I played cello.

"Then I got free music lessons in school. Those days are gone."

It is why part of Bradford Opera Festival is a free wider programme for children including an interactive opera puzzle at Cliffe Castle, pop-up piano performances at railway stations and composition and performance workshops at local schools.

For Chisholm, from Leeds, music should not divide along class lines, but bring people together.

"I so passionately believe opera is for everyone, but it will only be for everyone if it reflects everyone, which is why for Bradford Opera Festival, we are making opera that looks and sounds like Bradford."

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