INTERNATIONAL opera star Ian Storey takes to the stage in his native North-East this evening after refusing to step into the shoes of Placido Domingo in one of Europe's leading opera houses.

"Barcelona wanted me to replace Domingo, but there's no way they could have tempted me away from this one," said Ian last night as he stopped over with his mother, Mary, in the house where he was born 44 years ago in Chilton, County Durham.

"I told them I was singing in Newcastle, and I'm not missing it for anything because its the first time I've been back to my home area in a couple of years."

The last time was at Durham Cathedral in 2000, which was the last time Mary saw him perform. The next time probably will not be until after 2005, because his diary is already full with dates in Bologna, Turin, Venice, Munich and Madrid.

So tonight - and Friday - at Newcastle Theatre Royal are rare appearances. He's in Opera North's Tosca, which is all but sold out.

"I have done many performances of Tosca in Italy and Britain, but this one is very different," said the former Ferryhill Grammar School pupil.

"It could be set in modern Italy with a character like Berlusconi in power, but the producer is really aiming to make us play very normal everyday characters with normal feelings in their everyday lives.

"People think opera is all great gestures and over-the- top acting, but its nothing like that at all."

Ian is 6ft 4in and 17st, and his giant frame fills the front room of the terraced house in the same way that his voice fills an Italian opera house. Mary remembers him as a small boy.

"He was about four, singing nursery rhymes when we found he could hold a tune without accompaniment," said Mary who, at 69, still plays the organ in St Aidan's Church, in the village.

She also remembers how a setback in the school play at first turned Ian away from music. "He was very annoyed when the teachers at Ferryhill Grammar didn't allow him a part in South Pacific," she said.

The family are true Durham mining stock. Ian remembers his grandfather coming back from "Doggy", or West Cornforth, pit and having a tin bath in front of the fire, but Ian turned his attentions to woodwork. He studied furniture design at Loughborough University and got a teaching job in New Zealand where he discovered he could still hold a tune.

Now he is one of the best-known tenors in Europe and, although he has turned Domingo down in favour of Durham, next year he will share the roll of Hermann with him in Tchaikovsky's Pikovaya Dama, in Madrid.

"There's only a handful of tenors in the world who can do that opera," says Ian. "Domingo is the biggest name, with 40 years experience, and I will be watching him like a hawk to see what I can pick up."

And he'll probably be pinching himself, too. "I walked into the Theatre Royal at Glasgow and noticed a big poster which I thought looked familiar, and it was me," he says. "I wondered how the hell did all this happen."

Mary, though, never doubted. "I always knew Ian would do what he wanted," she says. "When he makes up his mind, nothing is going to stop him."

Not even the lure of Domingo's shoes in Barcelona.

* For tonight's show at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, there are a few gallery tickets at £11.50 and £5 left. For Friday, there a few single seats. Contact the box office on 0870 9055060.