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| Buxton Opera House festival time. Credit Buxton International Festival |
Having launched in 1979 with a production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in a version, rare at the time, that undid traditional cuts and transposition, the Buxton Festival returned in 1980 with Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet with Thomas Allen in the title role.
For 2025, the Buxton International Festival is returning to its roots with a new production of Thomas’ Hamlet, directed by Jack Furness. The festival’s artistic director, Adrian Kelly, will conduct the Orchestra of Opera North. The young American baritone Gregory Feldmann makes his role debut as Hamlet; Feldman was a member of Opernhaus Zürich’s International Opera Studio from 2022-24 and his roles in Zürich include Mercutio in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. Singing opposite him as Ophélie is one of Feldmann’s colleagues from Zürich, Europe-based South Korean soprano Yewon Han. Also in the cast are Alistair Miles, Allison Cooke, Richard Woodall and Joshua Baxter.
In complete contrast will be Mozart’s The Impresario (Der Schauspieldirektor), his one act comic entertainment written at the same time as Le nozze di Figaro. The work will be heard in a production directed by Christopher Gillett (who has produced the English spoken dialogue) originally produced at Opera Zuid in collaboration with the Buxton International Festival. The cast includes Nazan Fikret, Jane Burnell and Conor Prendiville. Jane Glover and Iwan Davies conduct with the new Buxton Festival Orchestra in the pit. This is a new venture, bringing emerging instrumentalists together for a four-week residency, performing in both the Mozart and a double bill of Poulenc and Bernstein, along with giving two orchestral concerts. The double bill features the intriguing pairing of Poulenc’s La voix humaine and Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti in collaboration with Norwich Theatre Royal. Iwan Davies conducts and Daisy Evans directs, with Charles Rice and Hanna Hipp in the Bernstein.
Shorts features four new operas commissioned by the festival, each around 20 minutes long, directed by Marcus Desandro and Rebecca Meltzer. The four are Inevitable by composer Carmen Smickersgill and librettist Josh Overton, Life Gets Stretched by Martin Green (composer & librettist), Disorderly House by composer Jasper Domnett and librettist Jessica Walker, and Tears Are Not Meant To Stay Inside by composer Thanda Gumede and librettist Zodwa Nyoni. Northern Ballet Sinfonia is in the pit.
Vache Baroque are bringing their production Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée aux enfers, directed by Jeanne Pansard-Besson and conducted by Jonathan Darbourne, and featuring Samuel Boden in the title role with Henry Waddington, Lauren Lodge-Campbell and Alexander Chance.
Gregory Feldmann, this year’s Hamlet, is joined by pianist Nathaniel Lanasa for The Way Home, a recital including songs by Schubert, Faure, Pavel Haas and Britten along with contemporary American and Canadian composers; Apollo’s Cabinet present A Birthday Party for King Frederick the Great; guitarist Craig Ogden is joined by cellist Adrian Bradbury and violinist David Juritz for Juritz’s transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations; all-female trio, The Portrait Players present The New Lyre – songs by 17th century women.
Pianist Joseph Middleton is joined by baritone Roderick Williams, mezzo-soprano Niamh O’Sullivan, tenor Toby Spence, and soprano Mary Bevan for four programmes exploring the elements – Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy joins the English Concert for a programme of Handel arias. Soprano Claire Booth, pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen and actor Alex Kingston are celebrating 250 years of Jane Austen with Jonathan Dove’s The Beautiful Cassandra alongside music that Austen loved. Pianist and composer Alissa Firsova is joined by soprano Jane Burnell and baritone Dan D’Souza for a programme of music by Elena Langer, Britten, Dmitri Smirnov (Alissa Firsova’s father) and Firsova herself. In another nod to the festival’s history, baritone Mark Stone and pianist Stephen Barlow (former artistic director of the festival) perform Schubert’s Die Winterreise.
Full details from the festival website.
