A BRIEF History Of Music‘ taking in 600 years of musical history in 90 minutes is just one of the shows this autumn as Ludlow Assembly Rooms is back open again.

This show on Friday, November 12, shows that the venue is not short on ambition.

Beginning in the Middle Ages and ending up in the 20th century and incorporating everything in between, this fun and fast moving show is a whistle-stop tour of Western musical history.

Featuring long forgotten songs and tunes, not to mention jokes, GreenMatthews paint a vibrant and vivid picture of our musical DNA, mixing the familiar and the obscure, the raucous and the reflective and the courtly and the commonplace.

On Friday, October 22 Mid Wales Opera presents Puccini’s passionate late masterpiece Il tabarro, or ‘The Cloak’.

Set on the banks of the Seine, this one act opera tells the short story of the barge owner Michele who suspects his young wife Giorgetta of being unfaithful. Packed with side plots and characters bringing to life the sights and sounds of 1900s Paris, the opera reaches its dramatic conclusion when Michele unexpectedly catches his wife’s lover at the strike of a match. With alluring melodies and a fast-moving pace, Il tabarro sees the great opera composer at the very height of his powers.

These are just two of the shows that form part of a busy autumn and winter programme at the venue as it looks to make up for lost time having been closed for more than three years.

But the Assembly Rooms that was to have been shut for six months was found to need more renovation than had been anticipated.

The venue has released a programme that takes arts enthusiasts through to the end of the first week of January.

Helen Hughes, chief executive at the Assembly Rooms, has said that making audiences feel safe is a priority and there will be arrangements to enable social distancing.

The Assembly Rooms also now has its restaurant open alongside the Visitor Information Centre that is helping people who come to the town and provide a boost to the local economy so dependent upon tourism.