THIRTY YEARS OF BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA

“First of all I tried out singing, but the press reviews were stinging, so I packed my bags and chattels, ran away to fight new battles.

I began at Barry Island, Bognor Regis was the second. Next I went to work at Minehead, but they found me too refin-ed, so I got a job at Filey, didn’t work so tried Pwhelli.

Some were lovely, quite delightful, but the others were really frightful.”

In recent years, Gilly has mostly taken over the translation task entirely, and her witticisms and rhymes are clearly hugely endearing – like our venues, the libretto is often one of the main draws for regular audiences. Recently she excelled with Haydn’s Il mondo della luna (‘Fool Moon’), which she peppered with at least 14 rhymes for ‘moon’, from ‘baboon’ to ‘spoon’, and contrived to introduce mentions of Apollo Eleven and the Sea of Tranquility. Perhaps it was not a translation for the purist, but it was wonderful fun to sing and clearly delighted our audiences.