Eight Little Greats by Opera North has captured the attention of opera-goers. Singer Mary Plazas talks to Viv Hardwick about taking the starring role in little-seen one-act work La Vida Breve which is part of Newcastle's eye-opening season.

GREAT things do come in small packages. Ask tiny opera singer Mary Plazas who has agreed to star in one of Opera North's Eight Little Greats productions which are causing a stir on the circuit this season.

Her name sounds Spanish and Plazas was the ideal candidate to perform the role of troubled factory worker Salud in Spanish-sung La Vida Breve by Manuel De Falla, but the performer was actually born in Oxfordshire.

The product of the RNCM and the National Opera Studio jokes: "A jolly time is had by all. The plot is of a young girl who has fallen in love with someone from a higher class, only to discover that he is about to marry someone else.

"Traditionally, she drops dead of a broken heart at the wedding feast and it's all very Spanish because she takes it all terribly, terribly seriously, because it is her first love.

"Nowadays, we have a different perspective on life and we've brought it up to date and brought it into modern times. It's now more of a fantasy she has and she imagines this great love affair because I think people fantisise and dream and they don't always have happy endings."

The action has been transformed to a modern-day wedding factory and there is a tranvestite who sits in front of the opera's heroine.

"Eventually her imaginings take on a reality and people in the factory start to notice her and, at the end, she chooses to self-mutilate and commit suicide. None of this is done in a grotesque way but is quite powerfully portrayed."

A famous member of the audience when the shows launched was feminist Germaine Greer who picked out La Vida Breve to praise on national radio.

"I wondered how she'd react when the message appears to be that a woman rejected by a man has the ultimate destiny to kill herself, but that's not so at all. Germaine Greer seemed to go along with this and she loved it because this particular girl is unable to conform with things as she knew them before. She opts out of a new life."

Plazas laughs about a question on the seemingly elusive hunt for Mr Right by many women. "Even when they find him they don't expect him to come up trumps anyway, you could say that about this opera," she says.

Plazas as an actor and opera singer found the Opera North interpretation quite difficult because she hadn't imagined herself in scenes of self-harm before, although she does know people who have chosen to do that.

'I didn't want to seem in any way disrespectful and that was not at all the director's desire. It feels very mundane, but driving right through the centre of the piece is this incredible passionate intensity, of course, featuring some fantastic music which takes us on an extra journey. It's the little bag of emotions that's left behind at the end of the day and not sentimentality," she adds.

Plazas has been fitting concert appearances around La Vida Breve, while other members of the 17-strong cast were asked to commit themselves to more than one of the short productions on show - which range from Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sings to Rossini's comic Love's Luggage Lost.

"When I actually back on the road that's all I'm going to do because you carry it with you as my commitment to that piece.

"The thing about this piece is that it wants you to explode in that kind of Latin way all the way through and the director has repressed those emotions so they eventually come through more powerfully." Her Spanish-sounding name comes from her father, although her mother is Portuguese, and she and her brother were brought up speaking Spanish and English - "my parents spoke Spanish in the house, but we answered in English," she laughs.

Plazas has no fears about breaking opera down to eight smaller chunks with two being performed on each night of a five-day run at Newcastle's Theatre Royal.

"It's not about having a better access to the audience with shorter operas because these works existed anyway. So we're not saying 'we want you to come because they don't last too long', we're actually encouraging people to come to all of them.

"Until now these operas weren't performed because it was difficult to fit them into a whole programme. I think Opera North quite cleverly decided to have a season of one-acters instead. It should have been done before, but it's a fantastic idea and the planning has been immense."

* Eight Little Greats allows the audience to select one or two shows per night with Zemlinsky's The Dwarf running for one hour 18 mins while Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins at 35 minutes. Each opera is sold individually, newcomers have the chance to try out one with the cheapest tickets at £2.50.

* June 1, Pagliacci (7.15) and Djamileh (8.45); June 2, Il Tabarro (7.15), La Vida Breve (8.45); June 3, Francesca Da Rimini (7.15), The Seven Deadly Sings (9); June 4, Pagliacci (7.15), The Seven Deadly Sins (8.45); June 5, Il Tabarro (2), Love's Luggage Lost (3.30), The Dwarf (7.15), La Vida Breve (9.15). Box Office: 0870 905 5060.

Published: 20/05/2004