THIRTY YEARS OF BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA

since original manuscripts from, for example, the extensive collections of the Austrian National Library or the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden can be accessed so easily from our computer screen. For Portugal’s Figaro (performed at our home venues 2010 and revived at Buxton), we easily located Dr David Cranmer, an English musicologist at the Universidade Nova in Lisbon and the acknowledged expert on this obscure composer. David was already engaged, along with his students, on a major project to edit manuscripts by Portugal, and happily had funding to do so. After a couple of years collating the different manuscript sources, we eventually received the neatlyedited score and were able to prepare the first performances anywhere since its Venice première in 1799-1800. Whilst it was rather like looking at Mozart through the wrong end of a telescope (although probably Portugal did not know the famous original version), it again proved fascinating to encounter a familiar operatic plot transformed through different music. It’s gratifying that other productions elsewhere have followed, including one in New York by On Site Opera in Bampton’s English translation.

We often commission our own music edition; editors Brian Clark and Peter Jones have (separately) produced several works for us, including Gluck’s Philemon and Baucis which used a manuscript in the Royal College of Music. For The Philosopher’s Stone, which was jointly composed by a team of musicians in Mozart’s circle who a year later helped create The Magic Flute, we were supplied with scores