Six Buxton operas for 2026

Summer time in Buxton - operagoers at the International Festival

Buxton International Festival has announced its opera line-up for July 2026, which will include two undoubted popular mainstream works alongside its more familiar, more specialist repertoire.

Verdi’s La Traviata and Lehar’s The Merry Widow are the lollipops, the former a co-production with Norwich Theatre directed by James Hurley and conducted by Adrian Kelly; the latter a revival with Opera Holland Park and D’Oyly Carte Opera of Scottish Opera’s production. The Lehar will be directed by John Savournin – a favourite of the Gilbert & Sullivan Festival’s audiences at Buxton, both as director and performer – and conducted by Iwan Davies.

There will also be two staged concert performances of Mozart’s opera seria, La Clemenza di Tito (conducted by Adrian Kelly), and three of Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula, directed by Olivia Fuchs and conducted by Erin Helyard with the English Concert Orchestra, at Buxton Opera House. The Buxton International Festival’s own orchestra is in the pit for all the other performances.

In the smaller, proscenium-less Pavilion Arts Centre, the festival will present a chamber opera from the 19th century, Le dernier sorcier by Pauline Viardot (the star mezzo soprano of her time, sister of Maria Malibran and mistress of Turgenev, later turned pedagogue); and festival visitors Vache Baroque, who gave Charpentier’s version of Orpheus and Eurydice this year, will bring La liberazione di Ruggiero by Francesca Caccini, who was that rarity of her time, 17th Century female composer.

Festival director Kelly said, "La Traviata completes our Verdi cycle and in true Buxton style, we present an ambitious line-up of six productions across 17 days. Our operas encompass a range of centuries, styles, and stories.”

Public booking for La Traviata and The Merry Widow opens on December 15 at 10am

Find out more here