English Touring Opera in Buxton

English Touring Opera’s Autumn Season – ‘Tales of the Serenissima: Baroque Opera from Venice’ – is visiting Buxton opera house with three productions on 17, 18 and 19 October.

The season celebrates Venice, the birthplace of opera as we know it, with a mixture of three varied Baroque operas. A great collector-state, Venice took fashions, aspirations, and artists from its trading world, and created a unique synthesis – opera, always a ‘mixed’ art, is at its most clearly mixed in Venice.

Ulysses’ Homecoming is one of only three surviving operas of the ‘father of opera’, Claudio Monteverdi. Unlike his other works this was not written for a patron but rather the people of Venice thirsty for ever-new and exciting works in an art form that was beginning to take off. Cavalli’s Calisto, also written for Venetian audiences, was so racy that there were reports of opera-goers at the time attending in disguise so as not to be recognised. In Xerxes, Handel turned to the Venetian style to keep his audiences in London entertained with gods and satyrs, dubious heroes and attractive fools cheek by jowl.

The operas in more detail:

• LA CALISTO (Cavalli) – Thursday 17November, 7.30pm

Cavalli’s La Calisto is a racy romp between gods, nymphs and mortals, an operatic romantic comedy.  The infatuation of Jove (George Humphreys) with the lovely Calisto (Paula Sides) and the unlikely attraction of virgin Diana (Catherine Carby) to the handsome youth Endymion (Tai Oney) entangle them in love wars as comical as they are dangerous.

ETO’s new production is conducted and directed by Timothy Nelson, and features Paula Sides in the title role, with a plush collection of continuo instruments.

• ULYSSES’ HOMECOMING (Monteverdi) – Friday 18 November, 7.30pm

Long after the end of the Trojan War, Ulysses returns to his home to find his wife Penelope rejecting suitors who try to overthrow him in his absence.

James Conway’s new production, designed by Greek designer takis (Ottone, Life on the Moon) will feature Benedict Nelson and Carolyn Dobbin in these central roles, Nick Pritchard as their son Telemachus, and Katie Bray as the feisty goddess Minerva.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n_35Nean5o

• XERXES (Handel) – Saturday 19 November, 7.30pm

One of ETO’s most warm-hearted and humorous productions of recent years was Xerxes, which saw Handel’s astonishing setting of a Venetian text relocated to the Battle of Britain, with the Persian king recast as a glamorous prince-turned-pilot jealous of his brother’s stronger sex appeal.

The score is Handel at his best, sometimes fiery and even explosive, at other times deeply touching. Julia Riley, Clint van der Linde, Laura Mitchell and Andrew Slater return in their original roles, with Pater Brathwaite and Galina Averina in her company debut, James Conway directs and Jonathan Peter Kenny conducts the spitfire brilliance of the Old Street Band.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/30859580

Calisto’s Spell

A handful of GCSE and A-Level students from Buxton, Derbyshire will have the chance to work with the professional singers and directors from the main stage shows. This unique workshop offers students the chance to see how the production has travelled from an original concept to the stage with the help of the designer’s model box. Students will then have a tour of the set and meet some of the cast before curtain-up on the evening of the performance. After the show, student will be invited to write reviews. (Buxton Opera House, 17 Nov, 4pm)

James Conway, General and Artistic Director of English Touring Opera says: “Nothing is so warm, noble and good-humoured as Xerxes; nothing so louche, light and sensual as La Calisto; nothing so poetic and life-affirming as Ulysses’ Homecoming. There is truly a satisfying course for everyone – and a whole meal of varied delights – in this a delicious, rich season.”

“This season of period opera from Venice comprises the highlights of opera’s most brilliant and scandalous, idealistic and funny, irrepressible period. Opera never got better than this!”

Performance details

Xerxes, Saturday 19 November, 7:30pm, £28-£36.50 (Restricted view: £19.50)

La Calisto, Thursday 17 November, 7:30pm, £28-£36.50 (Restricted view: £19.50)

Ulysses’ Homecoming, Friday 18 November, 7:30pm, £28-£36.50 (Restricted view: £19.50)

Buxton Opera Theatre

http://buxtonoperahouse.org.uk/ 01298 72190