Opera North's Queen of Spades – in pictures

Neil Bartlett writes: Every show, and every company, needs a performer who sets proceedings alight. Our Queen of Spades is Dame Josephine Barstow, and this shot exemplifies what I mean. All I asked her to do was slowly open a door – and a simple scene change became an unforgettable image. Magic
Photograph: Tristram Kenton/Tristram Kenton

Neil Bartlett writes: Tchaikovsky’s score for The Queen of Spades is an extraordinary thing. At once expansive, excessive and opulent, it’s also strangely interior; the real action of the opera takes place largely inside one man’s head. As heroes go, no-one is more solitary, more at odds with his world, than Herman. At key moments in the show, I’ve chosen to sweep all the glamour of the 19th century setting aside and present him with brutal simplicity Photograph: Tristram Kenton/Tristram Kenton

Neil Bartlett writes: The second act of the show opens with a grand masked ball - a scene that could easily drown the music in frocks and glitter. The task here was to connect the disconcerting theatricality of the masquerade with the deeper themes of obsession and fatality that run through the music Photograph: Tristram Kenton/Tristram Kenton

Neil Bartlett writes: Designer Kandis Cook and I have collaborated before. She has an uncanny knack of knowing when to let rip, and when to keep it simple (just like Tchaikovsky, by the way). Some of the jewellery and gowns for this piece are the most sumptuous we’ve ever created together; but everything she does works to frame and enhance the personalities of our singers. Here, the fatal Queen of Spades herself appears in her final, deadliest and most luxurious incarnation Photograph: Tristram Kenton/Tristram Kenton

Neil Bartlett writes: The vision of this piece may be mine, but realising it on stage has involved close collaboration with two of my closest colleagues, movement director Leah Hausman (centre) and lighting designer Chris Davey (right). Leah and I have been making theatre together since 1984 – when, I remember, we actually slept on the stage of the theatre to save money on accommodation. The digs may have changed – but the intensity and sheer pleasure of the working relationship, I’m happy to say, haven’t Photograph: Tristram Kenton/Tristram Kenton

Neil Bartlett writes: A chorus is much more than just a group of people – they’re a team who can act as one, amplifying an emotion or gesture on stage to a scale that a solitary performer can never dream of achieving. Put the simplest action - knocking back a drink, in this case - in time with music as theatrical as Tchaikovsky’s - then amplified by the number of people you’ve got in the chorus, and the gesture can acquire an extraordinary kick. The simplest tricks are the best Photograph: Tristram Kenton/Tristram Kenton

Neil Bartlett writes: I love the result, but oh the opening scene of the opera was a bastard to stage. A chorus of 56, 20 children, and all the principal storylines to establish - rehearsals for this sequence required nerves of steel. Fortunately, the kids were absolutely undaunted. The boys were mainly worried that their red sticks would never look as good as real guns.

Queen of Spades is at Grand Theatre Leeds 20-28 October, then tours until 24 November. Details here Photograph: Tristram Kenton/Tristram Kenton