Throw aside any preconceptions about Italian Grand Opera. Where else would you find, in the course of one evening, love affairs, political intrigues, assassination, the Spanish Inquisition and even a spectral monk?

Don Carlos has all that and more, and next week York Opera will be performing Verdi's work in English with a full orchestra at York Theatre Royal.

Set in France and Spain during the reign of Philip II, the action concerns Philip's son, Crown Prince Don Carlos, and his struggle for both personal fulfilment and social justice.

Carlos is in love with Elisabeth de Valois but learns that his own father claims her for his bride: to cure his infatuation, Carlos's friend Rodrigo suggests that he leave for the Netherlands to protect the Flemish against the tyranny of Spain.

Musical director Alasdair Jamieson says: "Don Carlos has some of Verdi's greatest music, and a really good plot with complex political intrigue and murder, and a tremendous power struggle between church and state."

Verdi's opera addresses the rawest and most direct forms of human feeling, as he pours some of his most dramatic music into the showdown between the King and the Grand Inquisitor, a moving death scene for Rodrigo and a spectacular choral scene full of regal pomp.

"It needs a large company to do it, so there'll be a full chorus of nigh on 60, an orchestra of 45 and ten principals," says Alasdair. "Much of the joy of this production will be in the quality of the voices."

Not surprisingly, Don Carlos demanded lengthy rehearsals.

"When choosing operas for this group, you have to think of the chorus requirements. We started chorus rehearsals in the last week of January, then had auditions for principals in February and started working with the principals in April, building up the number of rehearsals from two a week in May to four from this week. It's a big undertaking, this opera!"

Among the principals will be tenor Neil Dunn in the title role; soprano Sharon Nicholson Skeggs as Elizabeth de Valois; mezzo-soprano Linda Baxter as the Princess of Eboli; bass Clive Goodhead as the Grand Inquisitor; and baritone Kevin Ormond, Rodrigo.

Among the most prized bass-baritone parts in Verdi's operas is the ageing King Philip, and Michael de Costa will be realising a long-held ambition to play this fascinating character who, despite his cold and calculating actions in affairs of state, succeeds in gaining audience sympathy in his very human predicament: that of an elderly man married to a young wife who does not love him.

Michael already has many Verdi roles to his credit, Macbeth, Nabucco, Germont, Renato and Otello among them. He divides his time between his teaching at his Academy of Singing in York and his performing, his schedule now including appearances at the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Festival Hall.

York Opera's Don Carlos, produced by Clive Marshall, runs at York Theatre Royal on July 2, 3, 5 and 6, at 7.15pm. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 10:08 Friday, June 28, 2002