For years they have been the repressed victims of the Saturday retail therapy experience – the sad-faced, frustrated men left shuffling their feet outside the changing rooms in department stores.

But now the "bored men" left waiting for their partners to endlessly try on clothes have a voice in the wilderness, a light in the seemingly never-ending darkness of the fitting room waiting area: in the form of a new opera.

They could, after all, be doing a thousand other things involving televised rugby, DIY or pubs, instead of trailing around clothes shops.

Now, an opera being performed in Bath for the first time this month, will tell the story of the Saturday shopping trek from the man's point of view, as they wait, and wait, and wait outside the ladies' changing room.

Written by Bathonian singer- songwriter Dave Wright, it is being shown as part of the Bath Festival of Opera, taking place at the city's Mission Theatre from Monday, July 13 to Saturday, July 18.

Five different companies will be bringing a feast of opera to the city with lunchtime and evening performances.

Director Ian Bell, from Melksham, said that Dave's long hours in the city's department stores meant that he obviously wrote from experience. "The songs are really good and the dialogue is funny, and it tells a story," he said.

"Basically, it is entirely set in the area outside a ladies' store changing rooms, and features the men coming and going as their partners go in to try things on for ages. They have a bit of fight in them.

"They sit in chairs and wait, and talk and, because it's a musical opera, they sing.

"There are four bored men, of a certain age, who have long given up trying to fight this.

"Like older people, they are out early to the shops, but later on two younger men come along and they contest with their partners a bit more – they have a bit of fight in them about this.

"There are two girl shop assistants and a delivery driver and, of course, the partners – all in all, there's a cast of 14," said Mr Bell.

"What makes it such a great little thing is that it is a situation that every man will recognise and will have experienced at some point, but no one has really tackled this before."

The writer Dave Wright is a keen opera fan who is also sponsoring the Festival of Opera. Bored Men is premiered on Thursday, July 16, with two more performances on the following two nights.

As well as that opera, other performances during the week include Trial By Jury, La Boheme and The Telephone, as well as a lunchtime Mozart concert.

As an experiment, lunchtime performances will be taking place in addition to the evening ones of Trial by Jury by Bath Gilbert & Sullivan Society and Stentorphon Opera plus The Telephone and a 20-minute ensemble of Cosi fan Tutti performed by Opera Anywhere, a touring company from Oxford.

The Wednesday lunchtime performance will be an all Mozart opera concert in aid of The Christian Blind Mission.

These lunchtime concerts cost £5 and start at 1.15pm.

The evening concerts all start at 7.30pm, and in addition to the above mentioned operas, Bath Opera will be presenting La Boheme under musical director Peter Blackwood and director Judy Davis on Monday, July 13 and Tuesday, July 14.

Tickets for all the evening performances are £10 each.

It is hoped that the Festival of Opera will become an annual event enabling composers to try out new works.

Tickets are available from the Bath Festivals box office on 01225 463362 or from the concert promoters WildThymeMusic on 01225 336161.

Tristan Cork