Conductor: Anthony Kraus
The annual Dewsbury concert by the Orchestra of Opera North has been moving steadily in recent years in the direction of a carol concert, but with one or two surprises. As Gary Walker points out in the programme, one of the joys of this concert is the opportunity for all branches of Opera North to get together. The concert usually (and certainly this one) consists of a serious work in the first half, followed by the orchestra and chorus letting their hair down (under the Santa hats, of course) in a selection of carols.
Opera North began this season with an opera from the Youth Company and the same confidence in their ability shows in giving over the first half to them, a splendid performance of Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols accompanied only by the orchestra’s Principal Harp, Celine Saout. Britten took a series of mostly medieval carol texts and set them in a contemporary, but sympathetic, way. Some of the words are familiar in their original setting: “Adam lay ibounden” or “I sing of a maiden that is makeles” – surprisingly dramatic and dynamic, that one.
Highlights included Balulalow, with Millie Mason’s beautiful solo followed by a gentle chorus part and This Little Babe, Southwell’s words projected with urgent attack. Incidentally, it is worth recording that six girls, all excellent, took solos – again proof of the quality of the Youth Chorus, joined on this occasion by Opera North Young Voices -slightly younger. Saout played the delicate interlude perfectly and her accompaniment reflected the changing moods of the piece.
For the second half it was the turn of the adults, in orchestra and chorus, though the Youth Chorus, lined along the sides of the hall, bolstered the audience carols and sang the descants with youthful purity. First up (orchestra only) was Nigel Hess’s A Christmas Overture, a Classic FM favourite that knits together carols and other Christmas songs very cleverly – and how about that fugue on We Wish You a Merry Christmas?
Most of the rest of the second half consisted of carols, half of them open to the audience to join in, with the choir singing the likes of John Rutter (inevitably The Shepherd’s Pipe Carol) and William Mathias (less inevitably the spikily dramatic Sir Christemas) alongside full-throated treatments of old favourites.
Two more pieces stood out in the second half. Ralph Vaughan Williams’s magical Fantasia on Christmas Carols set three regional carols collected by Cecil Sharp, culminating in the wonderful Sussex Carol. And Irving Berlin’s White Christmas showed up in an arrangement by the great Robert Russell Bennett, orchestrator for Gershwin, Rodgers and everyone else you could think of. Somehow, amid the lavish orchestration, RRB left out the verse! It’s a fine setting, though, and the first chorus was sung by a fourth choral ensemble, BBC Leeds Bantam of the Opera Choir, made up of Bradford City fans and scheduled to appear on Sports Personality of the Year.
A romp through Jingle Bells and that was it for another Christmas.
Reviewed on 11 December 2025
