It’s July 2025, the hottest day of the year, and I’m clearing out my desk in the OperaWatch office at Northern Soul Towers.
After 12 years as Northern Soul’s Opera Correspondent, I’m stepping down. Age and arthritis have done for me as I can no longer sit still for three hours without moving my stiffening knees (inherited from the Tin Man, no doubt) or waddling to the bathroom every five minutes. I pack my reviewing quill, opera glasses, and my signed photo of Wagner. The image’s inscription reads ‘Robert, alles gute zum geburtstag, dein freund, Richard’. It was presented to me on my 70th birthday by a smiling delegation of OperaWatch trainee critics. Or were they laughing?
It reminds me of another hot day in July 2013 when I set off for my first assignment as Northern Soul’s newly appointed opera critic. It was a semi-staged, six-hour performance of Siegfried by Wagner. It was mesmerising and I was hooked. Since then I have enjoyed every second of every opera I have seen over the past dozen years. The highlights have been fast and furious but the stand-outs have been Opera North’s revival of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes by Phyllida Lloyd, and Jasdeep Singh Degun’s masterful reimagining of Claudio Monteverdi’s Orpheus. We are very lucky to have Opera North. In Manchester, we are also very lucky to be the home of the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). Their student productions are phenomenal and as professional as they come.
I would especially like to thank Elizabeth, Julia and Rowland at Opera North’s press office and Liz at RNCM for all their help. Finally, I want to thank Helen Nugent, my wondrous editor at Northern Soul, for having the faith to send me on my first assignment on that hot afternoon 12 years ago. I did get to see the whole of the Ring Cycle but not necessarily in the right order. Like Peter Grimes, the note on my door says ‘gone fishing’.
Main image: Palau de la Música, Barcelona. Copyright Robert Hamilton.
