Hazel Pearson Theatre, Middlesbrough College

COVENT Garden recently launched ideas designed to attract young people to opera and dispel perceptions that it is for welldressed and well-heeled audiences. Up in Cleveland, composer John Forsyth is going one better, familiarising children with the genre by writing opera for them to perform.

The Kingfisher runs through a gamut of emotions, from lyrical to lament, as the boy, Anton, ticked off by his parents for throwing stones at birds, re-offends and finds himself literally up before the beak after being surrounded by a chorus of various vengeanceseeking garden species.

Entering their world, and despite his mitigation that the stone was to stop the loss of his goldfish, his punishment for breaking the kingfisher’s wing is a quest to find where the birdcatcher has hidden his feathered trophy and then set them free.

This delightful two-act opera involved more than 40 children and young people from Tees Valley Voices and Egglescliffe School Training Choir, who were musically spot-on.

In imaginative costumes topped with masks and elaborate face-painting, the accusatory chorus of birds stamped their anger and later sorrowed over a lightly-made moral about human disregard for nature.

It was colourfully staged, with a handful of props and large projected images of a garden as backdrop for the first act and a dark woodland picture heightening fearfulness in the second. Jasper Bruce-Wright, as Anton, projected the words of his songs clearly as he stoically set about his mission, vocally encouraged by Anna Dias flitting about the stage as the kingfisher.

As The Birdcatcher, Tom Powell, had the catchiest song, a jazzy blues number performed with gusto. Omar Shade brought humour to the proceedings as the doddery owl judge. Forsyth also directed a dozen young musicians forming the orchestra.

Months of rehearsals clearly paid off, leaving a raft of youngsters with a relish for opera.