THIRTY YEARS OF BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA

by Prof. David J. Buch (University of Northern

Iowa), who had recently created a performing edition. The Hampstead Festival got to it just ahead of us in 2001 with a concert performance but we gave the UK staged première.

Sometimes our audiences are caught unawares. After a performance of Gazzaniga’s Don Giovanni at Westonbirt, a perplexed man protested that he had recordings at home and “I haven’t recognised a single note all evening”, clearly not realising that we were not performing Mozart. Usually however our audience is well prepared: a precious personal memory is sitting at the Deanery in 2008 with our then patron, Sir Charles Mackerras. It was our UK première of Ferdinando Paer’s 1805 opera Leonora, a powerful anticipation of Beethoven’s version composed a few months later (and which eventually mutated into the famous Fidelio). Mackerras had conducted the Beethoven frequently and could barely contain his excitement as he spotted various motifs which Beethoven had ‘borrowed’ from Paer.

We’re always delighted when critics acknowledge the enterprise of our repertory, such as Alexandra Coughlin, writing in The Spectator in July 2015 about Salieri’s Trofonio’s Cave. “Oxfordshire’s Bampton Opera is pretty much guaranteed to produce a show you won’t have seen before.” Most gratifying was how our reputation led our 2019 production of Stephen Storace’s Gli sposi malcontenti (performed under the title Bride & Gloom) to be selected as a Finalist in the Rediscovered Works category of the 2020 International Opera Awards. We were the only UK company in our category and up against major foreign contenders – although we didn’t win, it was a proud honour (and, besides, the pandemic meant that the glitzy awards ceremony was relegated to being a rather dull online evening).

E poi le parole - throughout we’ve been determined to perform in English, so that our audiences can be engaged fully in what they see and hear. There are of course powerful arguments for original language opera – although the whole thorny issue of language has been modified in recent decades by translated surtitles in theatres, fine when they work, irritating when they’re ‘out of sync’ or incorrect. But, especially in comedy, reading a surtitle can awkwardly anticipate a visual gag on stage, thus ruining the impact of musical synchronisation. Bampton translations aim to project an appeal which might win over even determined lovers of original language opera. Whilst some singers regret the loss of the ease of Italian text, it is generally much quicker to memorise and rehearse in English.

Occasionally our operas have used existing English translations, but usually our rarities need to be translated from Italian, German or French. With The Cairo Goose in 1994, Gilly and I discovered that the challenge of translating an opera was intellectually enjoyable, although stressful and timeconsuming. Neither of us can claim to be polyglots, but musical translation is like a crossword puzzle, fitting words into awkward spaces dictated by pitches and beats. Whilst sincerity and truth of meaning are crucial, most important are placing stresses in the right places and using vowels which suit the flow of music and the voice. Especially in comedies, rhymes reinforce humour, as any G&S fan would agree. Sometimes, we must admit, what we produce is more a ‘version’ than a ‘translation’ but this enables entertaining production-specific flavour.

Figaro’s ‘catalogue’ aria in The Barber of Seville lists his Spanish travels in Castliglia, la Mancia and Andalusia – but in our holiday-camp version: