Article published in Manchester Evening News 3 July 2015

MANCHESTER International Festival isn’t the only one in the coming week – not for lovers of opera, books and classical music, anyway.

There’s also Buxton Festival, which begins its three-week, event-packed programme on July 10 with a gala concert. 

Artistic director Stephen Barlow, a major opera and orchestral conductor, and brings his wide range of sympathies to Buxton – and his extensive network of top classical musicians.

“What we aim to do is to provide, day after day, from 9am to sometimes nearly midnight, a variety of what are called ‘the high arts’,” he says.

“The real point about what we do is that everything is new, all the time.

“You’ll see some works you’ve only heard about, and some you may know reasonably well, but everything is fresh minted for the event.”

His opera programme this year includes an early work by Verdi, Giovanna d’Arco (with Kate Ladner, who scored a big success in last year’s Otello by Rossini, in the title role), and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Both are staged by the festival itself, and there’s a concert version of Louise, by Charpentier. Stephen Barlow conducts the last two, and Stuart Stratford, recently appointed music director of Scottish Opera, the first. Giovanna d’Arco (opening July 11) is directed by Covent Garden favourite Elijah Moshinsky – ‘the most experienced Verdi director alive today’, as Barlow describes him. “He’s chosen to come to Buxton for the same reason I love conducting here,” he says. “The theatre acoustic is wonderful, and it’s a perfect stage for opera as drama.”

The tenor lead is sung by young Briton Ben Johnson, who Barlow predicts will make this the springboard to a very big career.

Donizetti’s version of Sir Walter Scott’s highland story, Lucia di Lammermoor, opens on July 12 and is, Barlow says, ‘perfect for this theatre’. Soprano Elin Pritchard makes her debut in the title role, and tenor Adriano Graziani is debuting as Edgardo. Familiar names Stephen Gadd, Bonaventura Bottone and Andrew Greenan are also in the cast.

And Louise (opening July 16) is ‘a to-die-for French romantic opera’, says Barlow. “It’s about Paris in the era of the ‘bohemians’ – full of tragedy, romance and the most beautiful music.”

That’s not all there is to Buxton en fête, of course – the English Consort present their staging of Purcell’s Dido And Aeneas (opens July 13), alongside a huge variety of concerts and recitals. Check it out.