Compared with Obama and McCain's sleekly orchestrated tour campaigns, Wintergreen's presidential election aspirations were in total chaos, his policies in tatters and his popularity rating dropping like a stone.

It was time for this little-known candidate to make a dramatic change and in a moment of sheer inspiration adopted a policy of universal true love and corn muffins for everyone.

It was that new look that in a wave of euphoria swept him into the White House as the new President of the United States of America.

The sideswipe at the American dream and their curious way of selecting a Head of State that was to give George Gershwin his highly successful 1931 Broadway musical, a score that contains some of his greatest hit melodies including the theme song Wintergreen for President and Who Cares.

Looking at the coming year, Opera North's general director, Richard Mantle, comments: "We particularly wanted to take the opportunity in a US presidential election year to give a full production of Gershwin's Of Thee I Sing, in which he satirizes the American political process".

But what happens if the selection process has chosen the wrong man? Gershwin's follow-up musical shows a new face of Wintergreen
who uses his new-found power to change the whole political scene to one of dictatorship.

"We had originally hoped to link Of Thee I Sing with that sequel, Let 'em Eat Cake, to form one piece by slightly abbreviating both", continues Mantle.

"That was one step too far for the Gershwin family to authorise, so we are presenting both, with the opportunity of seeing them on consecutive nights next February".

William Dazeley, who sang Wintergreen in the company's semi-staged 1998 production of Of Thee I Sing, returns to the role, with Bibi Heal and Richard Suart among the supporting cast.

"With those two works in mind we thought of a thread running through the year of politics, and later in the year we have a revival of David Pountney's 2001 reworking of Shostakovich's comic satire, Cheryomushki, to form an English language operetta Paradise Moscow."

With Stalin long gone, Shostakovich felt able to show how corrupt Communist Party officialdom could be in the Soviet mania for urban planning, when the only thing young couples wanted was a home to call their own.

Outspoken jury member from BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, Craig Revel Horwood, is in charge of the choreography, with Margaret Preece and Richard Suart in the leading roles.

The clock is turned back to Italian politics in June 1800 for the fact-based story of torture, intrigue and murder that was used by Puccini for the opera Tosca.

With Napoleon's army sweeping across Europe and coming ever closer to Rome, the chief of police is anxious to extract the names of any revolutionary by whatever means necessary.

It is the scene of repression into which the opera singer, Floria Tosca, walks.

It offers the perfect part for great singer-actresses, and Opera North are thrilled to have signed up one of today's most exciting young sopranos, Takesha Meshe Kizart, who comes to Leeds fresh from having just sung the role to ecstatic reviews at the Dallas Opera.

Maybe politics do not spring to mind in Romeo and Juliet, but it is the conflict that they generate that succeeds in killing the hopes and aspirations of the
young.

Maybe that is why Bellini decided to name his opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montegues) to move our attention away from the love story.

Though a runaway success in its early years, this new production provides a rare chance to see the work and also to see two great singers, the British mezzo, Sarah Connolly, and the Swedish-born soprano, Marie Arnet.

A new opera that takes a look at the shady world of cosmetic surgery in Skin Deep; Verdi's Don Carlos and a new production of Mozart's gentle comedy The Abduction from the Seraglio completes the season.