AFTER a two-year break to concentrate on other projects, opera impresario Ellen Kent is enjoying her return to the theatre circuit.

“I’m producing and directing now, rather than promoting, which is being done by Derek Block & Blackburn International,” says Ellen, who directed the Ukrainian National Opera of Kharkiv in last autumn’s tour of Verdi’s La Traviata and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and is now at the helm of the company’s new production of Puccini’s romantic opera La Boheme.

Both last October’s well received shows visited the Grand Opera House in York, where La Boheme, Puccini’s tragic tale of the doomed, consumptive Mimi and her love for a penniless writer, will be staged on Thursday as part of a tour from February to May.

“It’s so rewarding to hear how much enjoyment people get from my operas, and it’s good to know I haven’t lost my touch,” says Ellen.

“Two years ago, my idea had been not to do the exhausting 24-hours-a-day schedule that I’d been doing for 21 years of wear and tear – I’m going to be 63 in April, unbelievable as that is – and you think, ‘How long have I got? Should I utilise it for a different spin?’, but it didn’t turn out like that of course!

“It’s turned out to be even more work than before, when I had 12 staff dedicated to it. Now that’s not the case at all and I ended up taking things over for the autumn tour – but it proved I could multi-task even more than I thought.”

Putting it in a nutshell: “You’re trying to bring in a show from Kharkiv at the same artistic level as the top companies over here but without the resources,” says Ellen.

To prepare the La Boheme production, Ellen went to the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv for two to three weeks. “It’s rather a nice place,” she says. “Really good restaurants, the biggest square in Europe with an enormous statue of Lenin, big-name shops like Marks and Spencer, Monsoon and Debenhams. I was a bit surprised by the city having all that, and the hotels are pretty good too. Not a bad experience, except that it was minus 25.”

Ellen first worked with the Kharkiv company in 2009 when bringing ballet productions of Swan Lake and Coppelia to Britain. “I thought, this is quite a find: a company where they do everything, including making all the sets, whereas the Moldovans who I’d previously worked with didn’t have the same facilities,” she says.

The whole entourage on tour with La Boheme amounts to 84, including the orchestra and drivers. “At one point, we even have the truck driver and coach/minibus drivers on stage,” says Ellen. “They all have their own costumes, and they love it, playing people in the market and restaurant scenes.

“The technicians take part as well! My chief technician, Vladimir, plays the main waiter, doing a bit of acting, when the waiter has to come in with a bill with only this poor old guy left there to pay it, who then collapses at the price!”

Ukrainian National Opera of Kharkiv in La Boheme, Grand Opera House, York, on Thursday at 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york