Bradford Opera Festival will make opera in Bradford, for Bradford audiences in a very Bradford way. With fantastic (and sometimes fantastical) stories, beautiful music, huge characters, gorgeous settings, opera has something for everyone.
In 2017 Ben Crick and Alex Chisholm worked together to bring Ice Cream: The Opera by Ian McMillan and Russell Sarre to the Bradford Festival over 600 people stopped by in one day to watch and listen. From there grew the idea to have a homegrown Opera Festival – featuring classic operas remade for Bradford and brand new work made by Bradford artists.
In 2019 with Skipton Camerata, we commissioned three short chamber opera from Bradford Friendship Choir and Fran Wyburn, Alya Al-Sultani and Kamal Kaan, and Ben Crick and Khadijah Ibrahim and showcased these at Kala Sangam along with two Barber of Seville arias in Yorkshire by Ian McMillan. You can see the showcase here – which shows there’s a lot of talent in Bradford to sing about!
We think opera would be better for a bit more Bradford in it – so we’re on a mission to find and train the opera talent of the future. We will be running workshops for families and young people in Bradford, and creating a series of ‘chota operas’ – little operas created by and for children. If you want your school or group to be involved get in touch.
Bradford is the home of revolutions – join the opera revolution to make the fantastical performances of the future.
Meet our team
Conductor & Composer
Director & Dramaturg
Poet, Performer & Writer