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Undaunted by the size of the task, East End Opera took out the shears, added a little bit of rock and roll and compressed a couple of characters to create The Tempest Island.Ìý

All of the themes of magic, revenge, love, forgiveness and redemption are still intact, but with a queen like, female Prospero and of course 700 magical spirits.

You can see it all for free at The Big Event! at the Royal Festival Hall on Friday when the Newham Young People’s Choir take to the main stage as part of Newham Arts Week.

Joining the choir will be soloists from East End Opera’s youth training programme, The Newham Vocal Pathways.

The young singers, aged 10 to 14, come from 26 schools across the borough of Newham. They’ll be joined by 60 pupils from Waltham Forest schools.

The Newham Young People’s Choir have been working incredibly hard with their teachers all year long and have received wonderful support and attention from the national Sing Up campaign.Ìý

Conductor David Lawrence will lead the massed choir in a concert that features folk songs from Russia, America, Africa and Asia, to name but a few of our destination hot spots.Ìý

East End Opera’s debut professional opera in October 2007 was a more modest affair in comparison.Ìý

The Four Note Opera by Tom Johnson used four notes, four singers and a pianist and fitted nicely into a small studio above a pub.Ìý

Moving from studio sized contemporary opera, to a concert hall sized musical is quite a leap, but the company couldn’t help but be inspired by the enthusiasm of the Newham Young People’s Choir and the willingness of the young people on the Newham Vocal Pathways course to take up the challenge.Ìý

Since it’s inception in 2005 East End Opera has consistently worked to achieve its aims and actively include their local communities and, as East End Opera views it, their audience and potential artists in every level of its work.Ìý

From evening classes, to concerts, to vocal workshops for beginners and professionals alike, East End Opera is quietly building up a reputation for being open, welcoming and committed to its vision to create quality singing projects that focus on the art of singing, in particular opera for everyone.

Unfortunately opera has long been considered a snobbish, elitist art form, so the east end of London might not seem the most obvious home for a new opera company.Ìý

But London’s theatre history tells us that theatres and musical halls all over London played host to opera productions that were as popular entertainment for all classes of people.Ìý

Consider the success of Lillian Bayliss’ classical theatre, opera and ballet companies at the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells which were the forerunners of to-day’s English National Opera and Royal Ballet.Ìý

This wasn’t art for the rich, but entertainment for everyone.Ìý

I may be the founder and artistic director of East End Opera but I must confess to believing for a long time that opera was a mysterious, impenetrable world until I realised the songs my grandmother sang with all her heart at every family gathering were invariably famous arias from operas.Ìý

Members of older people’s choirs who performed with East End Opera in local concerts were delighted to remind the younger singers and audiences that a sing song in an East London pub would just as easily include a blast of Carmen along side music hall favourites.Ìý

Today we regularly hear football chants roared with fervour from the terraces carried on a tune from an opera (Verdi’s operas being very popular).Ìý Let’s also not forget how Luciano Pavarotti blew open the 1990 World Cup with Nessun Dorma from Turnadot and launched a whole new wave of interest in opera.Ìý

The short term vision for East End Opera is to develop the capabilities of the organisation in order to stage an opera annually and keep the youth and audience development programmes running on a year round basis.

The long term vision is to establish a company that encourages all levels of professional artists to create opera and music theatre, develop a strong, informed local audience and above all to give opportunities to young aspiring singers to take the first steps in their artistic training.

Sing Up! Sing Out is on Friday at 7.30pm at the Royal Festival Hall. Foyer events start at 6pm