If we believe the BBC, only one choir trainer in Britain has what it takes to let the people sing. Yet Gareth Malone, inspirational a figure though he is, does not own the alchemist's copyright on turning vocal straw into gold. Anyone who remembers the Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Chorus, launched with a fanfare in 2011 but quietly dropped in 2020, will testify to the remarkable work of Jeremy Haneman.

   In and around London, Haneman is a choir-training icon who rescued the Royal Opera project from oblivion and thus created the self-governing Thames Opera Company, a throng of untrained, non-auditioned amateurs who have flourished under his artistic leadership in tandem with the music director Ashley Beauchamp. Anyone who attended Basildon's Towngate Theatre expecting to applaud politely will have had an agreeable shock as the 80-strong chorus took Verdi, Mozart and even Sondheim in their stride. Their language skills matched their choral assurance as they delivered an evening to treasure.    ​

   The TOC's patron, the genial baritone Roderick Williams, led the solo roster with an audience-friendly razzmatazz that he set aside as necessary to become a supercilious Onegin or an oleaginous Don Giovanni. Williams squeezed this date in between performances of Death in Venice for WNO and here, as there, he flitted between a succession of different roles, on this occasion mostly from his existing repertoire and all sung with thoughtfulness and suavity. 'Non più andrai' from Le nozze di Figaro brimmed with wit; his Toreador Song from Carmen swung and swaggered.

   Luis Gomes, always a personable stage presence as well as a top-notch tenor, dominated the second half with a succession of finely sung arias and partnered the soprano Anita Watson in an account of Puccini's first-act finale from La Bohème that soared securely and overflowed with warmth of passion. The same pair delivered a roistering Brindisi from La traviata, while Watson and the mezzo-soprano Nancy Holt drew sighs from the full house with their Flower Duet from Lakmè and for 'Soave sia il vento' from Così fan tutte (with Williams as Don Alfonso).

   Two moments stand out from the night of highlights: Holt's rapt account of 'Must the winter come so soon?' from Barber's Vanessa, and a performance of the Blue Fairy Aria from Jonathan Dove's The Adventures of Pinocchio given by the young opera student (and alumna of the Thurrock Community Choir) Blaize O'Callaghan. Hers is a pure voice of sweet beauty that will one day bloom to fill a larger house than the Towngate. For this occasion, though, it was a perfect fit.