The Royal Opera

The Royal Opera is a company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Along with the English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Company, it was known by that title until 1968. It brought a long annual season and consistent management to a house that had previously hosted short seasons under a series of impresarios. Since its inception, it has shared the Royal Opera House with the dance company now known as The Royal Ballet.

When the company was formed, its policy was to perform all works in English, but since the late 1950s most operas have been performed in their original language. From the outset, performers have comprised a mixture of British and Commonwealth singers and international guest stars, but fostering the careers of singers from within the company was a consistent policy of the early years. Among the many guest performers have been Maria Callas, Plácido Domingo, Kirsten Flagstad, Hans Hotter, Birgit Nilsson, Luciano Pavarotti and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Among those who have risen to international prominence from the ranks of the company are Geraint Evans, Joan Sutherland, Kiri Te Kanawa and Jon Vickers.

The Royal

The Royal is a British medical drama series produced by ITV that ran from 2003 to 2011. The show comprised one-hour episodes which were normally first aired on ITV in the Sunday early evening slot.

The title of the series refers to the fictional "St Aidan's Royal Free Hospital", located in Elsinby, a fictional rural seaside town, portrayed as being close to Aidensfield, the fictional setting of the UK TV series Heartbeat. The series was shot in Whitby and Scarborough, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The Royal is an NHS hospital serving the local town, countryside and visitors. The show was set in the 1960s. It began as a spin-off from another popular ITV show set in North Yorkshire, Heartbeat.

Stars of the show included Ian Carmichael, Wendy Craig, Robert Daws, and Amy Robbins. The last episode of the show aired at 7.00 pm on Sunday, 31 July 2011 on ITV.

Overview

The Royal was introduced in the 14th episode of the 12th series of Heartbeat entitled 'Out Of The Blue' and The Royal benefited from this connection to the extremely popular parent series; several Heartbeat characters appeared in the first couple of series of The Royal, most notably Bill Maynard as a bed-ridden Claude Greengrass, but as the series progressed it generally dropped its character crossovers with Heartbeat to become its own entity.