THIRTY YEARS OF BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA

Henry Herford, a baritone of national status, to create the role of the Don’s long-suffering servant Pasquariello. We borrowed unwieldy staging platforms from nearby Cokethorpe School to improve sightlines, and much to the relief of our orchestral players, a sheltering tent was supplied by our lighting technician Ian. Our audiences had been growing, and so we persuaded our Deanery hosts to allow two consecutive evenings, thus giving better value for our performers’ hard work in rehearsing. The pattern of Friday and Saturday performances has continued ever since. Finances were much eased by obtaining a £5000 National Lottery grant – in those days a simple application process, and a development which gave us much more confidence for the future.

It seemed there was no shortage of rare repertory to explore, and future prospects began to excite. In 1998 we ditched the name ‘Summer’ and became ‘Bampton Classical

Opera’, referencing the period of European music in the second half of the 18th century. For a logo we adapted one of the splendid stone Ionic capitals (classical in a different sense of the word) which were ornaments in the Deanery garden.

We commissioned a completion from Oxford musicologist Simon Heighes of Thomas Arne’s supremely inventive but fragmentary 1740 setting of Alfred (the original source of Rule, Britannia!) and my own art-historical interests in the Anglo-Saxon period were exploited in recreations of the monumental Ruthwell Cross and visualisations of the lovely ‘Alfred Jewel’ from the Ashmolean Museum. Alfred was sung by tenor Michael Powell, living in nearby Crawley, Amanda Pitt played Queen Eltruda, and Michelle Harris the spirited Prince Edward. An appealing cameo scene of historic British kings and queens was cheerfully played by friends from the Drama Group - Pat Smith,