BAMPTON CLASSICAL OPERA 2016 DOUBLE-BILL: ’DIVINE COMEDIES’

Gluck, Philemon and Baucis (UK première; first staging in modern times)
Arne, The Judgment of Paris
The Deanery Garden, Bampton, Oxfordshire: Friday, Saturday 22, 23 July
www.bamptonopera.org

Bampton Classical Opera’s summer 2016 production will be a double-bill of two one-act works: the UK première and first staging in modern times of Gluck’s Philemon and Baucis, and Thomas Arne’s The Judgment of Paris, which the company performed in 2010-11. The operas will be staged by the same creative team as the highly-successful 2015 production of Salieri’s Trofonio’s Cave. The director will be Jeremy Gray, with an English translation by Gilly French, and the conductor will be Paul Wingfield, who was a Jette Parker Young Artist from 2012-14 and is currently a member of the music staff at the Royal Opera House.

The cast for both operas features Canadian soprano Barbara Cole Walton, making her company début, mezzo-soprano Catherine Backhouse, who sang in the London performance of Salieri’s Trofonio’s Cave in 2015, and two other cast members from the same production: soprano Aoife O’Sullivan and tenor Christopher Turner. They are joined by tenor Robert Anthony Gardiner and baritone Robert Gildon.

Christoph Willibald Gluck Philemon and Baucis
Gluck’s Philemon and Baucis is a one-act mythological opera which originally formed part of an extended entertainment Le feste d’Apollo, written in 1769 for the wedding celebrations of Ferdinand, Duke of Genoa and the Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria (sister of Marie Antoinette). A simple but charming plot tells of how the grateful Jupiter blesses the contented rustic couple Philemon and Baucis. The superbly varied and colourful music comes from Gluck’s maturity although it re-uses several earlier pieces. It includes a stratospherically high aria for Baucis, and a dramatic storm sequence.

Bampton Classical Opera has made a unique commitment to performing some of Gluck’s barely-known shorter operas, including UK premières of La danza and Il Parnaso confuso. This new première will be given in an English translation by Gilly French, with a performing edition based on a manuscript in the Royal College of Music.

Thomas Arne The Judgment of Paris
Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778) was one of the most colourful figures in English music history. Unfortunately very few of his stage works survive complete.

The Judgment of Paris, composed in 1742 and based on the famous classical myth, was designated a masque but is in fact a short opera in the late Baroque style. The English text is by the great poet William Congreve, and was originally written for a famous composition competition in 1701 in which several composers participated, the prize going to John Weldon. Perhaps in choosing the same libretto forty years later, Arne hoped to make a point about his own superior standing, although by then the original competition pieces had long been forgotten. Arne’s inventive music perfectly matches Congreve’s droll wit.

Bampton Classical Opera performed The Judgment of Paris in concert performances marking Arne’s 300th birthday in Oxford’s Holywell Music Room and in Wigmore Hall in 2010-11.

Philemon and Baucis
Baucis Barbara Cole Walton
Philemon Catherine Backhouse
Jupiter Christopher Turner
Chorus soprano (shepherdess) Aoife O’Sullivan
Chorus tenor Robert Anthony Gardiner
Chorus baritone Robert Gildon

The Judgment of Paris
Juno Barbara Cole Walton
Pallas Catherine Backhouse
Paris Christopher Turner
Venus Aoife O’Sullivan
Mercury Robert Anthony Gardiner
Chorus baritone Robert Gildon

Orchestra of Bampton Classical Opera
Conductor: Paul Wingfield
Director/designer: Jeremy Gray
Movement director: Triona Adams
Costume designer: Vikki Medhurst

Philemon and Baucis/The Judgment of Paris, with free pre-performance talks:
The Deanery Garden, Bampton, Oxfordshire OX18 2LL
7.00 pm Friday 22 July, Saturday 23 July

Bampton Classical Opera was founded in 1993 by its artistic directors, Jeremy Gray and Gilly French. The company stages productions in rural venues in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire as well as regularly in London at St John’s Smith Square. Other significant venues and festivals have included Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, Buxton Festival, Cheltenham Festival and Theatre Royal Bath. Eschewing familiar repertoire, Bampton concentrates instead on rarities from the late eighteenth century, sung in lively new English translations, and has given many enterprising performances of forgotten operas. Amongst these have been UK premières of Bertoni Orfeo, Marcos Portugal The Marriage of Figaro, Paer Leonora, Benda Romeo and Juliet, Gluck La danza and Il Parnaso confuso , and Salieri Falstaff . The UK première in summer 2015 of Salieri’s La grotta di Trofonio has been widely admired as a musical and dramatic revelation.

The delightful Deanery Garden at Bampton provides a charming and picturesque venue for open-air opera, and has an excellent natural acoustic. Audiences are encouraged to bring their own garden chairs and enjoy a pre-performance or interval picnic.

“a serious business with remarkable artistic standards….. huge charm, eyes and ears for spotting young talent, no pretensions and a hunger for digging out operatic rarities” (Opera)

“few British companies are cannier than Bampton in capturing the flair and the fizz of operas that have tumbled out of the repertoire” (Opera Now)