In California-like sunshine Bradford-born artist David Hockney opened a triple exhibition of his stage-work - the biggest and most ambitious of its kind ever to be staged at Salt's Mill.

Followed by a stream of TV cameras, photographers and journalists from all over the country, Hockney genially took them on a tour of Stages, the name of the show, which covers more than 10,000 square feet of space on the third floor of the mill.

More than seven months in the planning and arrangement and costing many thousands of pounds to put on, Stages shows sets for the operas, the Rake's Progress, The Magic Flute and Le Rossignol (The Nightingale) designed by Hockney between 1975 and 1981.

In addition there are sketches, paintings and a range of miniature sets designed to scale for Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, the very first opera for which Hockney was commissioned by Glyndebourne Festival Opera 25 years ago.

The artist, sporting a green New York baseball cap, was thrilled with the execution of the show spread out through three spaces, all differently decorated and lighted.

"I think it's terrific. The way they have done this top floor is superb. They've gone to a lot of trouble and it's a success," he told the T&A.

"I think Jonathan Silver would be overjoyed with it, wouldn't he?"

The late Jonathan Silver was the man instrumental in reviving Salts Mill by mounting an exhibition of Hockney's work in 1987.

In addition to Hockney's Cubist-style sets the artist painted four new pictures showing views of Saltaire that can be seen from the partly-blocked in windows of the upstairs gallery.

One was painted on site; the other three Hockney completed in the last few weeks at his London studio, painting from memory.

One of the visitors admiring the show was Horsforth-born artist David Oxtoby with whom Hockney attended Bradford Arts College back in the mid-1950s.

"He's retained his honesty. A lot of people sell out, prostitute themselves; but this is great, especially in the art world of today with Damien Hurst and people selling their beds," Oxtoby told the T&A.

The latter remark was a crack at conceptual artist Tracey Emin, whose soiled unmade bed showed at London's Tate Gallery, recently sold for £150,000.

Stages, now open to the public, is due to run for several years - at least until 2003, the bi-centenary of the birth of Sir Titus Salt.