The extravagant musical Blaze to be staged at Darlington's Railway Museum has hit a high point with soprano Suzannah Clarke. She talks to Viv Hardwick about her encounters with the railway children.

'IT'S a bit worrying," admits Middlesbrough's international soprano Suzannah Clarke when she's faced with a question suggesting that it was about time that Tees Valley hosted an opera.

And it's not just any old opera. The £250,000 price tag makes Blaze, the musical theatre that's flexing some industrial muscles at Darlington's Railway Museum, the biggest project funded by the Government's Creative Partnership Tees Valley scheme.

Seated in front of the set for this tribute to the North-East's railway heritage, Clarke confesses that she felt she sounded a little mad by demanding that her art form finally got some recognition in her own backyard.

"It's been quite incredible what has been achieved because I thought it was only going to be a tiny little project costing a few hundred pounds involving a few children. Then it became absolutely enormous and I was delighted because there hasn't been this kind of funding from government for a long time.

"This makes a huge change for the Tees Valley area because, as a child, I never had any access to big projects like this," she says.

Tickets are still moving a little slowly for the community project involving more than 100 children, five schools, Newcastle's Northern Stage and a host of supportive professionals and amateur entertainers.

Clarke admits there is still an element of anxiety over opera in the region. One of the leading child performers forcefully informed her at the beginning of rehearsals that nobody liked opera.

"I could have challenged that opinion, but I made everyone laugh by replying 'well, neither do I'."

Thanks to Durham composer Will Todd's powerful music and Toby Satterthwaite's libretto and the workshops led by director Alan Lyddiard and Clarke herself, the youngsters involved are now steamed up about a musical on rails.

"They truly are the railway children, they even wave to the trains which pass and the Arriva train which stops at this station," laughs Clarke.

She's even recruited some Teesside steelworkers as singers who are now so enthusiastic that they've volunteered to do some acting as well.

Normanby-born Clarke is currently Middlesbrough's musical ambassador and is probably the UK's best-known singer in North Korea, having been invited to perform there after honouring the country's 1966 soccer heroes in song.

Clarke has just finished performing another community opera in London and is currently working on a series of TV and radio projects, including BBC Newcastle covering her starring role as The Mother in Blaze.

"What a cheek," she laughs. "They've cast me as a mother of five and my character is quite crabby. I can be snappy without the need of children."

* Blaze runs July 27-31. Tickets are £7-£2.50. Box Office: (01325) 486555. www.blaze-online.co.uk

Published: 22/07/2004