Sherlock Holmes and The Sign of the Four opera to debut in Leeds

A tense-looking Sherlock was accompanied with singing dialogue – known in operatic terms as recitative – and an orchestra.

It was quite unusual.

“Opera often struggles to tell these faster paced, action-driven stories and we wanted to show that we can do it,” Mr Ward added.

The staging has been sourced from charity shops, Facebook Market Place and antique fairs, Mr Ward said, and Northern Opera Group has stayed faithful to the original “good old-fashioned Victorian detective caper”.

The cast is small but strong, including bass Ed Hawkins – an “imposing” former trumpeter as Sherlock – and Scottish soprano Katy Thomson as Mrs Hudson, who could be heard practising in the toilets as the “acoustics in there are so good”.

Though Mr Ward, 35, hopes it will be taken seriously by sceptical opera lovers, he was also keen to point out that “at the forefront, it’s entertainment”.

He added: “Some new opera can be a bit of an intellectual exercise and that’s absolutely not what I am interested in.

“There’s drama and humour in this and some great moments people will recognise. Sherlock has such wide, unlimited appeal, we’re just using opera to tell his story in a slightly different way.”

The production’s composer and librettist Lliam Paterson was approached by Northern Opera after it saw his “wonderfully dramatic” previous work.

Originally from Aberdeen, one of the 33-year-old’s biggest challenges was finding the right musical language to tell the story.

“The music is very rhythmical with repeating sections and themes we obsessively return to – to mirror how Sherlock’s mind works,” he said.