Nearly five years ago, a young man from Morpeth was taking his first tentative steps in the world of opera.

Alex Banfield, then 23, was making his debut as Albert Herring in Benjamin Britten’s opera of that name.

It was a production for the Samling Academy, set up by Hexham music charity Samling which, as well as providing residential masterclass weeks for young professional singers, seeks out talent from our schools and colleges.

This was the Academy’s very first production, with full set and costumes, which was staged in Saltburn and at Sage Gateshead, where I met Alex during a rehearsal.

He was a bit older than his fellow cast members but still finding his feet.

Alex Banfield, left, in rehearsal for Un Ballo in Maschera
Alex Banfield, left, in rehearsal for Un Ballo in Maschera

Having been a chorister at St Nicholas’ Cathedral in Newcastle and sung with music societies, he had gone to Leeds University to study sociology. The pull of music was strong and it was a bit of a false start.

He returned to the North East and, through a friend, got to hear about Samling. He was then cast as Albert Herring, the timid boy who gets cast as the May King in a Suffolk market town.

“It’s the most challenging thing I’ve ever tackled,” Alex said back then. Samling, he added, had boosted his confidence.

This week sees Alex back in the region as a salaried member of Leeds-based Opera North’s highly regarded chorus.

Looking back at Albert Herring, he says: “It was hard because it was a lead role in a contemporary opera – well, relatively contemporary – and it was my first opera.

“I was 23 and I still wasn’t entirely sure if it was going to be the right thing for me.

“But I’d got a place at the Royal Northern College of Music (in Manchester) and as soon as I got there and realised I was good at it, I also realised that I loved it.

A scene from Un Ballo In Maschera
A scene from Un Ballo In Maschera

“I was with the right kind of people, fellow musicians, and it has been quite a journey from that point on.”

Alex says he completed two years in Manchester to secure a masters degree but had intended to stay on for a third.

“But I got offered work with Opera North for a full year. I wasn’t going to take it but my friends were saying, ‘Alex, why did you want to come to college? Wasn’t it to be a professional opera singer?’ They were right so I took it.

“That was in 2015. My first main stage opera was The Barber of Seville by Rossini. I did a couple more of those and also a Whistle Stop Opera (Opera North’s series of bite-sized operas), singing Nemorino in The Elixir of Love.

Nemorino is the love-struck peasant in Donizetti’s comic opera.

“We went to community centres performing this shortened version of the opera and it was amazing. People absolutely loved it.”

Being a member of the Opera North chorus, explains Alex, is “a prestigious job” because few opera companies in this country have full-time professional choruses.

“There are thousands of singers in the country but probably only about 30 people in my position.”

Chorus members might also get a named role in a production (like Nicholas Watts, singing Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni) or cover for the principals.

Tereza Gevorgyan (Oscar), Rafael Rojas (King Gustavus) and Patricia Bardon (Ulrica Arvidson) in Un Ballo In Maschera
Tereza Gevorgyan (Oscar), Rafael Rojas (King Gustavus) and Patricia Bardon (Ulrica Arvidson) in Un Ballo In Maschera

This month Opera North are at the Theatre Royal with Madama Butterfly, Don Giovanni and the less familiar Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) by Verdi.

With a love triangle at its heart, and inspired by the real-life assassination in 1792 of King Gustavus of Sweden who had fallen for an ally’s wife, it is, says Alex, “one of those operas people know but have never seen”.

Sung in Italian (with an English translation on screens), it is a new production directed by Tim Albery. The music, says Alex, is “so uplifting – moving and powerful”.

There is also “a sort of dark humour unique to Verdi”.

Coming later in the year is yet more evidence of Alex’s burgeoning talent. In The Merry Widow, the opera by Franz Leh

ár, he is to sing the part of St Brioche. We’ll get to see that at the Theatre Royal in October.

But more significantly, Alex has landed the part of Jonathan Dale in the UK premiere of Silent Night, a Pulitzer Prize-winning opera by American composer Kevin Puts recalling the 1914 truce on the Western Front when British and German soldiers left their trenches to exchange gifts.

The opera, with a score described as “lyrical, cinematic and expressive”, was inspired by a 2005 film called Joyeux Noël.

was premiered in the United States in 2011 and, as that prize suggests, was very well received.

“Exciting NEWS!” declared Alex on his Facebook page, announcing his professional debut in a lead role.

And to me he adds: “I’m super-excited. This is such an amazing opportunity I’ve been given.”

The opera, produced to mark the centenary of Armistice Day, will be sung in English, French and German. It will be a concert staging and there will be four performances at Leeds Town Hall from November 30. Unfortunately, it won’t be coming to Newcastle but Leeds is within easy reach.

Alex says his character excitedly joins up with his older brother, William, on the outbreak of war.

“Jonathan swears to protect him, as is his mother’s wish. He says, ‘If one of us should die, then let God choose me, for I can’t live without him’.

When William is killed, Jonathan is broken.”

As for the future, Alex says that while a job in the chorus is a “rare privilege” and can be for life, he has ambitions.

“I one hundred per cent see myself as a soloist. It has been quite a journey from five years ago, which seems like another lifetime to me. But I want to see how far I can take it.

“These opportunities I’m getting are excellent but I’m looking to get to the next level.”

* Opera North are at the Theatre Royal with Madama Butterfly (Tuesday, March 20 and Thursday, March 22), Don Giovanni (Wednesday, March 21 and Friday, March 23) and Un Ballo in Maschera (Saturday, March 24). Tickets: www.theatreroyal.co.uk or tel. 0844 8112121.