THIRTY YEARS OF BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA

Mike is a man of hugely diverse talents who had already built up considerable experience in operatic stage management and prop construction for another small company. He became site manager, organising everything from marquees and signs to portaloos, but he was also busy creating props and scenic additions, especially Figaro’s lawnmower, complete with a rotating red-andwhite spiral ‘barbershop’s pole’. Mike’s handiwork was brilliantly in evidence the following year, in La capricciosa corretta. I set the production in Naples in classical Roman times, which opened up many comic possibilities. Mike triumphed with a ‘mosaic’ panel (based on the famous original ‘Cave canem’ from Pompeii) in which the eyes of the depicted guard-dog flashed red and his jaws emitted smoke. This being yet another opera with a storm scene (the main character declares “I’ve a horrifying notion something bad’s about to start!”), Mike contrived a huge revolving panel which revealed Mount Vesuvius, no less, and which Ian’s lights made spectacularly erupt.

By 2007 Mike was joined by another skilful village resident, Anthony Hall. Together they billed themselves as ‘Bampton Scenic Workshops’ and, although they didn’t always agree on the best way to load the back of van, the collaboration was fruitful and multifarious. They were even persuaded (perhaps with some reluctance) into costume, as monks carrying Juliet’s bier in Romeo and Juliet, and as French revolutionary soldiers in Leonora in 2008. The set for Leonora was one of our best home-builds, constructed around massive tower-like blocks donated by English Touring Opera – we took a van down to the Peacock Theatre in London to load them up late at night after the end of their Magic Flute. In their recycled Bampton guise they were doublefaced, and we revolved them in the interval, with attractively