Artistic Director’s Welcome
-Adrian Kelly
While opera is an art form with a rich history, it is vital that we invest in its future. This year we feature 5 operas over 5 centuries; spanning baroque to Shorts, an exciting new commissioning project with 4 award winning artists.
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Artistic Director’s Welcome
-Adrian Kelly
While opera is an art form with a rich history, it is vital that we invest in its future. This year we feature 5 operas over 5 centuries; spanning baroque to Shorts, an exciting new commissioning project with 4 award winning artists.
It seems like only yesterday that we finished the 2024 Festival on a high with sold-out performances of Carlos Acosta’s extraordinary ballet evening at the Buxton Opera House. It was a fitting end to what felt like a pleasingly buzzing Festival. In September we learnt that we had been nominated for an International Opera Award in the category of Best Festival. Receiving the nomination alone felt like a vote of confidence in the work we have been doing, and it has motivated the Festival team to push ahead with some ambitious plans for the future.
Since I started at the Festival in 2019, we haven’t performed any French opera, with the exception of Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon in 2021. I am happy to say that we will remedy this in 2025 with no less than three works in French. The first is Ambroise Thomas’ romantic masterpiece Hamlet, directed by Jack Furness. I am delighted that for this project the Festival will collaborate again Orchestra of Opera North, building on the success of Ernani last year.
We will also embark on a new collaboration with Vache Baroque, who will bring director Jeanne Pansard-Besson’s acclaimed production of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Orphée to the Pavilion Arts Centre, conducted by the festival’s artistic director, Jonathan Darbourne.
We are proud to work together with another new partner, Opera Zuid, presenting director Christopher Gillett’s production of Mozart’s The Impresario, conducted by Dame Jane Glover. Our third French opera, Francis Poulenc’s La voix humaine, which will be performed as part of a double bill with Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti directed by Daisy Evans and conducted by Iwan Davies.
Last but not least, we will be presenting Shorts, a collection of four newly commissioned chamber operas, each lasting twenty minutes. While opera is an art form with a rich history, it is vital that we invest in its future, and in Buxton we are committed to offering opportunities to the next generation of opera makers.
It’s going to be another exciting festival in 2025. I hope to see you there.
