Opera for all of us - Buxton, MIF and Clonter

Opera in this part of the world comes in concentrated bursts. Opera North often offer us an early week in the year and a late one, with three different shows each time, and right now we have the Buxton Festival with its three in-house productions and one from Music Theatre Wales, plus BambinO, the ‘opera for babies’ provided by Scottish Opera in the Manchester International Festival, and next week Clonter Opera in Cheshire swings into action with its main summer production, The Marriage of Figaro.
Buxton is presenting the rarely seen 1847 Florence version of Verdi’s Macbeth, Britten’s comedy Albert Herring, and (in co-production with The English Concert), Lucio Silla, an opera Mozart wrote at the age of 16.
The festival has secured a great Verdi director in Elijah Moshinsky for Macbeth, whose interest in early Verdi has already borne fruit in Giovanna d’Arco in 2015 and will continue with Alzira next year.
Stephen Barlow, now in his fifth year as artistic director of the festival, conducts Macbeth, with Stephen Gadd in the title role, Australian soprano Kate Ladner (a wonderful Giovanna in Giovanna d’Arco) as Lady Macbeth, Moldovan bass Oleg Tsibulkov in his UK debut as Banquo, and South Korean tenor Yun Soo Yun as Macduff. Remaining dates are 14, 18 and 21 July.
Justin Doyle is conductor for Albert Herring – after piloting the excellent, intimate production of the piece for Opera North four years ago, which never toured. This time it’s directed by Francis Matthews, and the cast includes Opera North favourites Yvonne Howard (Lady Billows), Heather Shipp (Mrs Herring), Mary Hegarty (Miss Wordsworth), Jeffrey Lloyd Roberts (Mr Upfold) and Kathryn Rudge (Nancy). Remaining dates are 12, 15, 19 and 22 July (the 19th is a matinee).
Laurence Cummings conducts Lucio Silla, and Harry Silverstein directs a team including Joshua Ellicott, Fflur Wyn and Rebecca Bottone, with the outstanding soprano Madeleine Pierard as Cecilio. Remaining dates are 13, 16 and 20 July (the 16th is a matinee).
Buxton is also hosting Music Theatre Wales’ new opera, Y Tŵr (The Tower) by Guto Puw –  the first time a work in the Welsh language has been toured outside Wales. That’s on 17 July.
Over to Clonter for The Marriage of Figaro. There’s a public preview performance on 20 July, and main ones on 22, 24 (matinee), 25, 27 and 29 July. It’s directed by Stephen Medcalf, who’s set it in 1930s Spain during the civil war, exploring class dynamics and a strong gender divide – plus, of course, the work’s wit and heartrending emotion. It’s going to be sung in Italian with English surtitles, and Clive Timms conducts the select Clonter orchestra.
So we have plenty of operatic choice, but for a limited period only. I’ve reviewed BambinO and Lucio Silla already, and Macbeth, Albert Herring and Y Tŵr are to follow – and also The Marriage of Figaro.

Macbeth - Jung Soo Yun as Macduff and Company (credit Robert Workman)

Albert Herring - the Company (credit Robert Workman)