Dorset cannot escape the world's growing turmoil and violence, a composer and librettist has warned following the premiere of his new opera.

Ben Kay wrote the libretto for The Path to Heaven, an opera that concerns the Holocaust viewed through the eyes of a survivor, and which saw its world premiere on June 19.

But despite the work's historical setting, Mr Kaye stressed the relevance of its themes to today's political climate.

"The Holocaust is more relevant now than any time since it happened," he told the Echo, pointing to warnings from former prime minister Tony Blair about growing far-right extremism.

"You've got people bombing mosques, you've got England fans giving Nazi salutes," said the 50-year-old Swanage-born librettist, who now lives in North Dorset. "You've got migrant families being locked up in the US. There's a real danger of returning to the extremism of the 1930s."

And Dorset was not outside such troubling trends, he stressed, pointing to a recent Echo article highlighting a steep rise in hate crimes in the county. "We might think that these issues don't affect our lovely, quiet county, but they do. They also go on here. There's absolutely no getting away from it."

The Path to Heaven's premiere, in Leeds, had gone 'extremely well', Mr Kaye said, revealing that he hadn't heard 'a single note' of the music by Adam Gorb before the performance, as the composer had written to the libretto rather than vice-versa.

"A good opera has many elements, and Adam did exceedingly well," he said. "It was a real rollercoaster ride of emotions."

Born in Swanage in 1968 to a father who served in the army, Mr Kaye spent part of his childhood in the German town of Bergen, close to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where some 50,000 Holocaust victims died, including Anne Frank. "I was exposed to the Holocaust from a very young age," he said.

He added his hope that The Path to Heaven, along with his other works, could help to redress the extremist trends he observed in the world. "I look at the world and it seems horrifying," he said. "And this is the world our children are growing up in."

Mr Kaye's previous work includes the libretto for Anya17, an opera concerning human trafficking, and a composition to mark the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings. He is currently working on a 50-minute oratorio about the life of St. George, as well as looking for publishers for two illustrated books he has worked on, 'The Ones who Walk Above' and 'The Silver Pool'.

"The [books] have an environmental focus," he revealed. "They encourage children to become the guardians of our natural environment."

He added that he hoped soon to see some of his work come to his home county. "My work has been performed all over the country, and all over the world - the US, Canada, Europe," he noted. "But for some reason it hasn't been performed in Dorset. But we can keep hoping."