THIRTY YEARS OF BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA

now persuaded into acting, playing workmen on their tea-break, and we still recall and laugh at how they spectacularly, if unintentionally, became entangled in uncooperative deckchairs. We hired an Oxfordshire Punch and Judy show (and operator) to create a seaside atmosphere, and Gilly’s childhood teddy-bear, June Blenkins, made her operatic debut. In addition to helpers from the first year, we added Peter Williams manning the lights, and the in-house bar was run by Ian Smith, Jacky Allinson and Pauline Smith: Jacky and Pauline (and soon also Gaynor Cooper) became established as amongst our most regular and valuable helpers right up to the present. Pat Smith and Margaret Williams wielded the make-up. Most of our previous supporters kindly maintained their financial interest, and we acquired further modest sponsorship from local and national businesses. The programme also records a fundraising raffle, with themed prizes including a goose, not from Cairo but from Peach Croft Farm in Radley – the BBC Music Magazine announced “the opera does not go as far as the goose’s entry, but there’s a chance to win a live one in a raffle after the show.” At least the goose (not alive!) no longer had to compete with the Dudley’s peacocks.

Gilly and I took the important decision to translate these Mozart comedies into English, determined that comic operas would be understandable to our audience and raise some laughs. We wrote a new script for the spoken texts of the Impresario as if the sparring singers were auditioning for roles in the Cairo Goose which was performed after the interval, and together we enjoyed the challenge of fitting rhyming couplets to the musical numbers. This far-from-easy task proved to be another starting point for the future.

The Oxford Times sent a new critic, Helen Peacocke, who thought the event was “quintessentially English” and felt “privileged to have attended this rare performance”. The weather on 16 July was beautifully sunny, the roses bloomed,and we were all congratulated for the “hours of effort that had gone into perfecting the performance”. We were delighted also that the two respected British opera magazines, Opera and Opera Now, both gave the performance advance mention, initiating a vital relationship with these publications which continues today.

A further inauguration in 1994 was a vocal concert of Advent and Christmas music in St Mary’s on 17 December, undertaken in association with the Friends of St Mary’s to raise funds for the restoration of the church spire. We were grateful to the vicar, the Rev’d Andrew Scott, for permission, and the gorgeous acoustic of our magnificent Norman and 14th century church, enhanced the vocal effect.

1995 was the tercentenary of the death of England’s earliest operatic master, Henry Purcell, and we decided to mark this with a performance of his magnificent Dido and Aeneas, an early masterpiece of English opera.

Already aware of our increasing workload, we invited an outside professional group, the Mayfield Chamber Opera Company, directed