Will Todd, born in Durham in 1970, has an extensive output of compositions to his credit, including highly-charged operas and oratorios, largely centred around themes from northeastern England, notably the workers' struggle against early 19th and 20th-century injustice and oppression. I had heard his emotive cantata The Burning Road performed at St Albans Cathedral in February 2002 – it depicts the relentless, footsore Jarrow Marchers of 1936 who stopped in the city en route to London – and was interested to hear the follow-up in his new opera on an allied theme: The Blackened Man.