Opera North

Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and the Theatre Royal, Newcastle. The Company's orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North, regularly performs and records in its own right. Operas are performed either in English translation or in the original language of the libretto, in the latter case usually with surtitles.

The major funders of Opera North include Arts Council England and, in Yorkshire, Leeds City Council, West Yorkshire Grants, North Yorkshire County Council, and East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

Opera North was established in 1977 as English National Opera North, as an offshoot of English National Opera, with the specific intention of delivering high-quality opera to the northern areas of England which, up to that point, had had no permanently established opera company. The company gave its first performance, of Saint-Saëns's Samson and Delilah, on 15 November 1978. The founding Music Director of the company was David Lloyd-Jones, who held the post until 1990. In 1981, the company's name was changed to Opera North, and the official ties with English National Opera ceased to exist.

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