CELEBRATE Voice, Salisbury’s exciting autumn music festival, returns this year, from 22nd October to 1st November, with a programme that ranges from a new production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly to the golden era of Hollywood, from a singalong Mikado to the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and his quest to retrieve his wife from the Underworld.

This breadth reflects the philosophy of the festival’s founder and director, soprano Lynsey Docherty: “Celebrate Voice has always been about more than world-class music. It’s about people, connections – and the way the arts uplift our city.”

Celebrate Voice opens on Wednesday 22nd with one of the sublime masterpieces of world music, Monteverdi’s Vespers 1610, directed by Robert Hollingworth, sung by I Fagiolini, with the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble. The setting is St Thomas’s Church, a magnificent building, of the same period as the Cathedral, which has one of this country’s finest surviving Doom paintings over the chancel arch (coincidentally, this painting is from roughly the same period as Monteverdi’s music).

That same evening, the first performance of Madama Butterfly takes place in the Medieval Hall, with Victoria Armillotta in the title role of Cio Cio San and Robert Forrest as Pinkerton. There are performances at 7pm on Friday 24th, Wednesday 29th and Saturday 1st November, with a 2pm matinee on Sunday 26th.

If your mood is less sombre, the opening night also features swing star vocalist Matt Ford and his band in an evening of songs from Hollywood to Broadway.

The Medieval Hall, in Salisbury Cathedral Close, is the venue for the majority of festival events. The weekend brings La Nuova Musica with a Saturday evening of Handel arias and duets, and a singalong Mikado on Sunday. The Bard gets his turn on Tuesday, with Shakeitup!, an improvised Shakespeare show. And Wednesday slows the tempo down with Lullabies of the Isles, a singing circle for adults and babes, at 11am.

There is a community gala at Salisbury Methodist Church on Thursday afternoon, with Celebrate Age, featuring some of the festival’s musical stars in a celebration of the transformative power of music and the arts. That evening, back at the Medieval Hall, Emma Smith and her band will delight jazz lovers.

Singing Sendsations (sic) on Friday at the Methodist Church is a day of music making and theatre activities led by festival director Lynsey Docherty, and that evening brings the folk trio The Young’Uns to the Medieval Hall.

Saturday’s events begin at 11am with Mr Sleepybum, a zany comedy about a man who can’t sleep and invents a machine to bring dreams to life. In the afternoon Emerging Voices showcases some of Salisbury’s young singers, and the festival ends on a tragic, beautiful, high note, with the final performance of Madama Butterfly.

For tickets and more information visit www.celebratevoice.co.uk

Pictured: I Fagionlini and Emma Smith Jazz.