Changing The Face Of Opera

After 100 days in his role as Executive Director of Opera North, Henry Filloux-Bennett chatted with Group Editor Andrew Palmer about the changing face of the arts, how we consume culture, and what the future of opera could look like.

Henry Filloux-Bennett had not quite anticipated just how different theatre and opera were as two different live art forms.

Opera North’s charismatic executive director has been in the role for 100 days, and he immediately opens up with a statement that causes me to pause for a second.

"I am not an opera person. I’ve never worked in opera before." He even admits to not having seen many operas.

But as we chat about everything from our enjoyment of playing badminton to watching TV, culture, music, and theatre, one begins to realise how his knowledge of theatre and the arts will benefit the company.

He has found the first few months fascinating as he acclimates to his new role.

"Opera North is obviously a huge company, and it has been a fascinating process trying to navigate priorities around what we want to achieve."

He quickly realised that opera has a different challenge going forward than theatre, but his wealth of experience will undoubtedly help Opera North as it tackles the changing and challenging cultural climate.

Henry’s credentials are impressive. The author and playwright, who wrote the award-winning Nigel Slater’s Toast, just one of many plays, arrived from across the Pennines, at Manchester-based HOME, the independent cinema, theatre, and art gallery, where he was Executive Director and Deputy CEO. Prior to that, he was Chief Executive and Artistic Director at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield and Head of Marketing at The Lowry.

"Story telling is always something we are going to need as a society, but opera doesn’t tell stories in the same way as theatre does or even television," he says.

His challenge then is to shift the perception of opera as some kind of elitist, posh person’s art form.

"I want it to be a genre that can appeal to someone who has not stepped foot in the Leeds Grand or the Lowry to watch an opera but might have gone to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Mousetrap, or whatever at those theatres.

"How do you start that conversation? One way is to say, 'You might not know the name, but you know the music. So give it a go.'"



We are both ardent followers of the arts, recognising the positive impact it has on society, and we discuss how sports like cricket and rugby, which are elitist, manage to communicate a totally different message.

"Opera here in the UK has lost its mainstream status. The question now is, How do you get back to that? Is it a case of the genre becoming a more populist art form?

"How do you make those stories appealing to a modern audience? I am not sure we've cracked that as an art form."

As he is speaking, he is giving me a look that suggests I might be able to come up with an answer, but all I can muster is a comment that there is a long way to go and it is a difficult nut to crack. Hardly helpful.

Henry is an interesting interviewee, one who thinks about each question and answers it with a natural, refreshing authenticity.

He is, as he explains, fighting a dual battle, and an unenviable one at that. He has to appeal to hard-nosed opera fans who want to see the continuation of the status quo in its traditional form and an audience yet to appear who want to be told stories in a, and here he emphasises, relevant way.

It is all very challenging, so why join Opera North?

"One of the reasons is the company’s fresh and radical approach to its work rather than just doing it in a traditional way.

"I’m not a traditional person; that is the appeal."

It is the old problem of balancing the dissonance between the needs of traditional and modern audiences.

He suggests the approach of trying to just sell a ticket is one of the "biggest potholes" he has to manoeuvre, opting for tackling the idea of what opera is selling and staying true to that.

He is having numerous conversations about what it is about opera as an art form that gets people out of bed, gets them excited, or makes them want to sit in a theatre for up to 3 hours.

So far, the answers have been varied, with some common threads: the scale or epicness of a production; the sound of up to 100 players performing in a large auditorium.

For the second time in our interview, he throws out a comment that makes me pause and think.

"It is scale, but it can’t just be about the story, the music, amazing costumers, or sets, because theatre can do that and theatre has that something else as well—it feels relevant to people.

To illustrate his point, he asked me if I had seen Moulin Rouge. "It is escapism. We know the world is terrible at the moment, and we all want to feel like things are a bit better.

"With Moulin Rouge, I thought people wanted to escape the real world for a bit, but actually, a colleague said no, people want to be kidnapped; they want to be ripped out of the real world and put into a completely different one. That is why Moulin Rouge works so well.

"Opera can do escapism, but we need to get to answering the question: how do we rip people out of the real world and put them into a Carmen, for example? That is what some theatres are getting right at the moment."

He refers to contemporary dance productions, where people do things on stage that most of the audience could never do. An interesting angle that Henry is keen to explore.

I don’t envy him, though he is quick to say he is not remotely deluding himself.

"I and theatre alone can’t save opera, but theatre can offer a lot as an art form."

"Did you know that the RSC’s biggest hit to date hasn’t had anything to do with Shakespeare? It has been Les Misérables and Maltida. It’s about branching out and using the amazing talents to tell stories for a new generation.

"Look at the National Theatre. It made its biggest amount of money from War Horse, using puppetry to tell stories in a different way."

Opera, then, needs a Warhorse or Maltida to resonate with audiences and adapt to changing habits. Audiences are changing, as the kerfuffle at this year’s BBC Proms showed; people now eat, drink, and use mobile phones in auditoria.

I think he agrees, but diplomatically cites a quotation attributed to Voltaire: ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'.

This is where his previous experience is helping to find the right balance, especially in how young people consume culture. While at the Lowry, the team tried to find a solution to the conundrum these days about short attention spans as a result of mobile devices and social media.

"The complexity of story-telling right now is incredible. Two of the biggest phenomena on Netflix are Stranger Things and Heartstopper, where the complexity of the scripts is enormous, but they hooked young people immediately. All the multiple plot lines going on at the same time were short, sharp bits that made their point in seconds and at a pace that flips around."

I begin to see his point. People confuse short attention spans for simplicity, but a reel on Tik Tok or Instagram could be part of the mix; after all, a young person can flick from one thing to the next and is happy to consume culture like that.

"We devised something similar to Opera North's relaxed performances where anything goes. The tickets may be cheaper, the lights might not be down all the time, and the audience is on mobiles. Rather like going to the cinema these days. You and I have the option not to go to that performance.

"As an industry, we have to respond to it because if we can't, there will not be an audience that wants to sit and watch a three-hour opera anymore."

"For organisations like this that receive millions of pounds from the Arts Council, it has to be a serious consideration.

"We have a responsibility to give people opportunities to get into theatre and show them there could be a really exciting and prosperous career in the arts.

"We need to excite people about those opportunities because they are going to be running the organisations in the future."

Another area that the team at Opera North has investigated is how it tackles environmental responsibility. The company’s first Green Season is showing three new productions that are being guided by the Theatre Green Book.

The productions make use of existing costumers, props, and set elements plundered from the company’s scenic stores in Kirkstall.

"I didn’t realise how complex it was even internally. We were talking about hydrogen-powered trucks. And minimising the environmental impact, encouraging the audience to choose e-ticketing, digital programmes, and travel to the theatre on public transport, where possible."

Being polemic, I ask Henry if audiences care and he retorts by telling me that Opera North is testing the premise with two cohorts. One group that has never been to the opera, and the other that has. The team from Opera North will be talking to them over the next few months during the Green Season to see if there is anything they care about.

"There is a huge amount of evidence that young people care about this, but do they care enough to go and see something just because we are doing it?"

Some people will just buy tickets to satisfy their cultural fix because the production is sustainable. I would be interested to find out.

Another area that the company is looking at is creating brilliant digital content. According to Henry, during the pandemic lockdowns, so many people created superb digital material, which led to audiences consuming culture in a way that was easy, personalised, and relevant.

"If that happens to be live, great; if on TV, great as well.

"Are we losing touch because we are not personalised?

"We run the risk of alienating a whole generation of people because we are making something an experience when they maybe don’t want it to be.

"Young people are using Limitless in France in a fascinating way. Going to the cinema and popping into a number of screens during the course of the evening, and across a week they may have seen the film but not in an event way. People don’t consume culture like that anymore.

"Prima Facie with Jodie Comer had more people watching it on screen than on stage; the screening of a live play was the biggest box office hit of the year before Barbie and Openhemier, which is astounding.

"Clearly, theatre is a live art form, and opera is our primary art form, but it doesn’t need to be our only art form. How do we invest in digital technology that young people and everyone else will want to watch?"

I think I will leave Henry to figure out how Opera North balances those needs.