Opera North strives to increase access to its activities and reach the widest possible audience. We believe that it is important to expand the opera repertoire through the creation of new small scale works, and have created and toured small scale opera for primary school children aged 9-12 years to great success since 2003. Cautionary Tales will be the starting point for Opera North to engage with younger children and create a high quality musical production for children aged 6-11 years.

Opera North will present 5 performances of Cautionary Tales and work closely with the composer and director to create work that entertains this young audience. Based on the success of previous productions designed for children, Opera North expects to attract more than 1,000 children from Yorkshire to their first opera. In the future we plan to bring Cautionary Tales to young audiences in more isolated rural areas and towns in the north of England that are not served by main scale opera.