THIRTY YEARS OF BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA

we reached an impressive total audience of 2500. Costumes were by Pauline Smith, who happily drew on her own youthful experience as a Redcoat at Butlins Barry Island and Minehead. It was also a pleasure to work at Buxton with the operaloving lighting designer John Bishop.

We went on to give three further operas in later Festivals: Georg Benda’s Romeo and Juliet (UK première) in 2007 and Cimarosa’s The Italian Girl in London in 2011, both benefitting from collaborations with Nigel Hook and John Bishop. Our fourth production there was in 2012 with Marcos Portugal’s The Marriage of Figaro, but thereafter changes in the Festival management and financial cut-backs curtailed Buxton’s interest in us. Our visits there were always fascinating, especially the slick rigour of the backstage crew, and we always had a good sociable time. I gave pre-performance talks as well as to the Festival Friends, and these were very well supported.

However the trips were always pressurised, especially for Anthony Hall and Mike Wareham driving the van, with all the logistics of props, set and costumes which had to be offloaded from the theatre back into the van overnight. Pauline recalls costume problems for Romeo and Juliet (which opened at Buxton a few days ahead of the Bampton