The most famous tramp since Charlie Chaplin has conquered another medium. Skellig, a vagrant with strange, wing-like shoulder blades, was created by the Northumbrian author David Almond ten years ago in a yarn quickly acclaimed as one of the best children's books of recent years. Since then Skellig's magical transformation of a woebegone family on a squalid estate has been turned into a Radio 4 drama and a hit stage play. Next year a movie version is out. Meanwhile, here is Skellig the opera, premiered in the arts centre overlooking the very streets in which the story is set. Quite right too. A down-and-out hero who drinks Newcastle Brown Ale (“nectar of the gods!” he cries) would expect nothing else.

Almond has done the libretto himself, trimming his imagery but keeping the Blake allusions. The story tells of a boy, worried about his ill baby sister, who finds the filthy, surly Skellig dossing in a garage and befriends him, unaware of his unusual healing powers.

All this the American composer Tod Machover has set to an 90-minute score that blends sophisticated 360-degree electronics and conventional instruments, resourceful choral effects and attractive neoclassical tunes. Done with a light touch, it's music that captures the tale's eerie essence - the inner city as a dark place in which disaffected supernatural man-beasts lie in uneasy hibernation - while being accessible and fun.

Much the same is true of Braham Murray's staging. It is sparse on scenery but big on lighting, atmospheric chorus movements evoking nocturnal creepies (Mark Bruce is the choreographer) and - for reasons made clear at the sugary conclusion - angels' wings.

As the boy Michael the young tenor Matthew Long gives an excellent performance, catching the tumbling anarchy of emotions and irrational outbursts passing through a teenager under duress. And his diction is crystal-clear, which is not always the case with Merrin Lazyan's free-spirited girl-next-door Mina, or with Sophie Daneman, playing Michael's mother. But the star is Omar Ebrahim (pictured with Long and Lazyan). He wheezes, roars, belches and retches the part of Skellig with terrific verve, though the effort does leave his voice in some disarray.

There's admirable singing from a Youth Chorus recruited locally, and in the pit the Northern Sinfonia delivers Machover's sinuous counterpoints neatly under Garry Walker's direction. More performances until Saturday, but I hope that won't be the end of this attractive, family-friendly opera.

Box office: 0191-443 4661

Editor's choice

• U2 at Nou Camp Stadium, Barcelona
• The 50 Best Movie Villains
• The 15 golden rules of theatre etiquette