The Impresario

Stephanie & Mozart

Opera Zuid, with Buxton International Festival

Buxton Opera House

July 17-26, 2025; 1 hr 30 mins

(also on July 26)

Richard McCabe (left) and cast in Buxton International Festival's The Impresario. All pics: Genevieve Girling

The only real comedy in five operatic programmes in this year’s Buxton International Festival, The Impresario is an adaptation by Christopher Gillett (who also directs) of Mozart’s 'Singspiel' (a vernacular play with music) of 1786, Der Schauspieldirektor.

The work was first heard at the Schonbrunn Palace, outside Vienna, at the behest of Joseph II, in a kind of mad competition with an Italian opera by Salieri, both performed at the same time in the same room. “Too many notes”, indeed!

It’s about the trials and tribulations of putting on an opera. The original had an awful lot of dialogue and not many notes, which makes it virtually unperformable today. Musically there’s an overture, a solo aria for each of two would-be prima donnas, and two ensembles: one a trio for the two women who both insist “Ich bin die erste Sangerin” to the hapless assistant director, and a finale for everyone.

In Gillett’s version, excerpts from some of Mozart’s other works are added and the story is embellished by becoming an opera about putting on an opera that is about putting on an opera (which is about putting on an opera). It’s all clear enough in the wash: we’re seeing a rehearsal of the show, which is itself about putting on a show, and characters can ease from one role to another to their “real” selves at any point.

It's got a first-class cast, particularly in the form of the speaking role of the fading impresario, played by actor Richard McCabe, and seven singers. Nazran Fikret (who tends to over-project a bit, even when it’s not meant to be funny) and RNCM-trained Jane Burnell (who is the vocal star of the show, ending the first half with a beautiful "Deh vieni non tardar" from The Marriage of Figaro) are the two would-be prima donnas. Dan D’Souza (also in the festival’s Hamlet opera this year) is the impresario’s assistant and sings "Non piu andrai", while Conor Prendiville is a character who seems more and more like Mozart himself, trying to reconcile the singers’ warring egos. Jamie McDougall has a cameo role near the end as a mad Scottish opera director, and Owain Rowlands and Jessica Hopkins give a lovely turn as Papageno and Papagena in the well-known duet from The Magic Flute.

Iwan Davies conducts the festival’s own orchestra, and it all ends with a dance and chorus of reconciliation. What could be nicer?

Info and tickets here