THIRTY YEARS OF BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA

Centre, Castle Vineyards, Red Lion Bookshop in Burford and Sherlocks Dry Cleaning. A number of Bamptonians became our first ‘Friends’, including Rosemary Colvile and Susan Phillips. Many others locally helped with aspects of administration, production and front-of-house, including Libby Calvert, Sarah Edwards, Tom Freeman, David Mills, Richard

Morby, Wendy Nichols, Ernest Rosengard, Pat Smith and Margaret Williams. A jolly bar was provided by Bothy Vineyard at Frilford Heath. The programme leaflet was typed at home and photocopied, although the poster was half word-processed – these were very early days for home publishing. To add an educational element we invited Donald Burrows, Professor of Music at the Open University and a renowned Handel scholar, to give a lecture in the WOAA gallery the previous week.

Fortunately the weather was fine and there was no need for recourse to the church. Woodforde’s review mentions approvingly the interruption of a “jet-powered roar from nearby Brize Norton airbase” which accompanied the slaying of Acis with “a cardboard stone” (I still remember constructing that somewhat impotent prop). The Dudleys’ prize collection of rare peacocks, corralled in their nearby enclosure, behaved themselves. Galatea’s final aria was rather drowned out by a spectacular pair of massive Roman candles which we used to represent the “bubbling fountain” into which the dead Acis is transformed – in 1993 it was surprisingly difficult to acquire fireworks outside November, and these had to be handed over to us discreetly in a brown paper bag in a Bicester car-park in the middle of June. We remembered to ensure that the church clock chimes and carillon were safely turned off. To this day, friends who sang in the chorus still smile at Woodforde’s dismissal of them as “lacklustre”. We had lessons to learn, certainly, but nor did we expect a “next time”. The audience was cheerful, the ambience was nicely relaxed, and we received warm and favourable comments around the village. One gentleman reckoned it was “the best evening of his life.” The event was even financially successful. Tickets were £10 and there was a modest profit of £832, a great relief to WOAA who had offered to underwrite the event.