Adam Green says his mother would have been overjoyed if he was playing first class cricket for Yorkshire.

Instead, early next month, the Harrogate-born baritone will be making his Opera North debut in one of the main roles in Purcell's Dido & Aeneas at the Alhambra.

He is contracted to sing Aeneas for one performance, on the final Saturday evening.

"Hopefuly Opera North will have me back in future. I have covered for them in The Magic Flute; but Aeneas is my first major role, my debut, for Opera North," he said.

But he has performed in this neck of the woods previously. I saw him perform excerpts from Mozart and Verdi among the David Hockney opera sets at Salts Mill on June 15. He was singing with soprano Martene Grimson, accompanied by Opera North's Martin Pickard.

They were entertaining 160 guests after a fund-raising dinner for Opera North at the Mill.

More than £15,000 was contributed to the company's target of £5.5m for a 250-300 seat auditorium for small-scale productions adjacent to its Leeds Grand base which is being refurbished.

Adam Green had not seen Salts Mill before that Friday night.

"I like being in the countryside. You don't have to be in London to work. I would happily be based at Saltaire and work for Opera North," he said.

The problem is, as he himself admits, there are hundreds of opera singers hoping for regular work. "It can be very patchy. You can be busy juggling two or three operas at the same time. Other times you can be juggling nothing at all.

"I think it pays well enough; the problem being if you earn x' one week and nothing another week you have to divide x' in two. Contracts tend to be for specific productions."

Adam Green's mother had a clearer idea of what she wanted her son to be than he did.

"I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I did a normal degree (at Cambridge) and then went to music college to give singing a go. Slowly but surely I have been working my way up. It isn't an easy life.

"I would like to have kids, but it's hard on your partner if you're disappearing into Belgium for three months.

"I don't have a long-term plan - to be singing at the Met by 2010. I just want to be busy, happy doing it and enjoying it," he added.

Judging by what I saw at Salts Mill, Adam Green has plenty of presence; he wasn't shy about playing up to the audience with a certain amount of controlled panache (he didn't overdo it).

I think Martin Pickard was impressed. He has conducted more than 20 operas for Opera North and has worked for other companies here and abroad.

High opera (as opposed to light operettas) sung in English can be problematic because our language is not as musically mellifluous as, say, Italian; sometimes the words are hard to hear.

"Most opera from the 19th century is in either Italian or German. You need a fine librettist or it (the text) falls flat. The Stravinsky (Les Noces) is by Auden. It's a difficult text at the best of times. I think there is a case for having surtitles even when the opera is not being sung in English," he said.

Surtitles are flashed on a screen above the stage. Connoisseurs might regard surtitles as a bit of a come-down, but companies such as Opera North have no airs and graces about what they do. They want to make the great operas of Mozart, Verdi and Puccini accessible to a wider public because great works of art are for everyone, even if everyone doesn't care if they are.

It is possible from the music and the acting on stage to sense what is happening - Tosca sung in Italian is a classic example of this - but how much more fulfilling to be able to understand exactly what is being said.

  • Opera North's productions at the Alhambra of The Magic Flute and Rigoletto can be seen from July 3 to July 6. Dido & Aeneas and Les Noces (The Wedding) form a double bill on July 7. To book ring (01274) 432000.