Redemption at the Home Office? Richard Moukarzel is inspired by Opera North’s social conscience

The Wagner Journal, Volume 19, Number 2, 73–5.

Review of Der fliegende Holländer, directed Arden, conducted Walker, Opera North, Leeds Grand Theatre, 2025.

This may well turn out to be yet another rant on the social mission of the performing arts in the 21st century – but so be it. In any case, productions like this one could potentially show the way towards a genuinely engaged (and engaging) institutional model, moving beyond rhetorics and platitudes: one that might contribute to a tangible political change, no matter how modest. As the only opera company with ‘Theatre of Sanctuary’ status, Opera North has been committed to welcoming refugees as active participants in its creative process since 2018 – even as the tides of fascism and austerity seem to be rising once again in Europe.