The Sunday Flea re-opens for business on May 18th and as well as the wide range of stalls will be playing host to Birmingham Opera's open day.

Artistic Director Graham Vick, Designer Stuart Nunn, Choreographer Ron Howell and the rest of the Birmingham Opera Team are looking forward to seeing you all there.

Activities start at 12 and end at 4pm. You can take part in singing, acting and movement exercises, learn about the company's work and our next production Mozart's Idomeneo or simply pop in to say hello.

Birmingham Opera are renowned for taking opera into strange places so I guess they'll be at home here.

Since 2001 we have presented Berg’s Votzek in a dilapidated warehouse on the edge of the Ladywood housing estate, Beethoven’s Fidelio in a big top pitched in Aston Park beside Aston Villa FC and Bernstein’s Candide in an old car parts factory in Digbeth. We explored the work of Monteverdi through a series of projects during 2004 in Cannon Hill Park, Oozells Square, Brindley Place, the Cathedral Precinct, The Bull Ring, The Fazeley Canal leading to a large-scale production of Ulysses Comes Home in Planet Ice in Spring 2005. In 2006 we presented Strauss's Ariadne Sells Out at The Que Club and in Spring 2007 Mozart's He Had It Coming in The Old Birmingham Municipal Bank on Broad Street. In October 2007, 300 Birmingham people and the CBSO joined us to present Verdi's La Traviata (an international co-production with Arena di Verona) to almost 10,000 people in The National Indoor Arena, Birmingham.

More highlights from the Flea over the next couple of weeks.