Buxton International Festival will pay tribute to the vision of its founder, Malcolm Fraser, with its flagship
production this year. BIF 2025 will return to the work Fraser put on for the second festival back in 1980 – Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet. The new production (July 12-22) will feature the Orchestra of Opera North.
The French theme continues with productions of Francis Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, in a double bill with Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti (July15-25) with the festival’s own orchestra, and Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphee aux enfers (July 14-24) in a production by Vache Baroque, the Buckinghamshire country house-based company founded in 2020.
The festival will also offer Mozart’s The Impresario presented by Opera Zuid from the Netherlands (July 17-26), with the festival orchestra, and four new chamber operas jointly titled Shorts, which will be given on a single bill and feature the Northern Ballet Sinfonia (July 13-25). In each case above, performances appear on specific dates within the given range.
Thomas’s Hamlet is in the French grand opera tradition, first given in Paris in 1868 and based on Shakespeare’s play. It has roles for Hamlet, his father’s ghost and Ophelia, as well as Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Laertes, Marcellus, Horatio and two gravediggers. in the 1980 festival, a young Thomas Allen made a big impact in the title role and Donald Maxwell was the ghost.
Festival artistic director Adrian Kelly, who will conduct, says: “The music has a bit of everything… Hamlet’s drinking song and Ophelia’s mad scene are the best known arias.”
The Impresario (Der Schauspieldirektor) is a one-act comedy about putting on an opera, in Singspiel format (with spoken dialogue, in this case in English), and was originally commissioned by Joseph II to be performed in competition with one by Salieri. The conductors will be Dame Jane Glover and Iwan Davies (who also conducts La Voix Humaine and Trouble in Tahiti).
The four commissioned pieces for Shorts are Inevitable by Carmel Smickersgill and Josh Overton; Life Gets Stretched by Martin Green; Disorderly House by Jasper Dommett and Jessica Walker, and Tears Are Not Meant to Stay Inside, by Thandanani Gumede and Zodwa Nyoni.
Adrian Kelly said: “While opera is an art form with a rich history, it is vital we also invest in its future. In commissioning Shorts, Buxton is offering opportunities to the next generation of opera makers, both on stage and behind the scenes. We are delighted to be working with these exciting young creatives.”
Shorts and La descente d’Orphee aux enfers (which has Henry Waddington in its cast) will be performed in the Pavilion Arts Centre, with the other operas at Buxton Opera House.
The festival also presents concerts including The Tallis Scholars, The King’s Singers, Benjamin Grosvenor, Toby Spence, Imogen Cooper and The English Concert, jazz from Clare Teal and Rumer, and a books stream with visits from Diane Abbott MP, Jeremy Hunt MP, journalist Sarah Rainsford, Rev Richard Coles and Simon Jenkins.
More information and tickets here