Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Sign of Four at Leeds Opera Festival

LEEDS Opera Festival has since 2017 energised the city’s summer cultural scene with some amazing operas rarely, if ever, seen anywhere else.

This year’s edition takes an even more daring step into the unknown with the premiere of a brand new opera: the world’s first to be based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebrated Victorian sleuth. This ambitious project was conceived during lockdown, when he had time to read all the Sherlock Holmes stories, by Northern Opera Group artistic director David Ward.

Scottish composer Lliam Paterson was commissioned to compose the music and libretto. More than a hundred creatives were involved in bringing the entire project to fruition with four performances in the Beckett University’s Leeds School of Arts ‘black box’ Theatre. The production is ingeniously directed by David Ward while the composer has remained closely involved throughout as rehearsal pianist.

The Sign of Four contains all the classic ingredients: a buried treasure chest from the Indian Andaman Islands, a suspected murderer with a wooden leg, and a mysterious character known as Tonga who kills with poison darts. Dangerous situations lurking around the dark streets and seedy wharves of Victorian London climax in a thrillingly improvised boat chase along the Thames.

Lliam Paterson’s engaging musical score is sensitively nuanced by a percussive instrumental ensemble placed stage-right and conducted by Ellie Slorach. The music wonderfully evokes this fast-paced narrative with romantic interludes. A solo violin suggests Holmes’ musical interest and a rich bass-clarinet adds menace or tension.

An expert cast of singing actors is led by bass Ed Hawkins, commanding of physical and vocal stature as the celebrated detective. The tenor David Horton is the zealous and loyal Dr Watson who falls in love with Ellen Mawhiney’s Mary Morestan. Trevor Eliot Bowes, Dominic Mattos, Katy Thomson and Zahid Siddiqui vividly portray a multitude of roles. An important canine character is that of Toby, an endearing puppet sniffer hound, operated by ‘Nana’.

Charly Dunford’s lighting and Caitlin Mawhinney’s stage designs with Victorian street lights and ghostly silhouettes of sailing ships stoke up the atmosphere. There is plenty of dry ice to evoke those notorious pea-souper London smogs.

The audience cheered to the rafters a hugely entertaining new opera. This Sign of Four deserves to be experienced in a larger auditorium, such as Opera North’s Howard Assembly Room.