IFORD Opera – now If Opera – celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, from 6th to 16th August, returning for a second year to Church Farm, Wingfield, near Bradford-on-Avon, with a programme which combines wit, tragic drama, Viennese sparkle, baroque boozing and the golden age of jazz and swing.
The opening night, Thursday 6th August, is the first performance of Bizet’s Carmen, with Alyona Abramova in the title role, The production, directed by James Hurley, reimagines the story of the flirtatious gypsy, the lovelorn soldier and the arrogant toreador from the heat of mid-19th century Spain to the French opera comique at the turn of the 20th century. The performances on 6th, 8th, 12th and 15th August are conducted by Oliver Gooch, with the Bristol Ensemble.
On Sunday 9th, there is a Carmen-inspired Fiesta Day – bring your own picnics to the Orchard or Wildflower Meadow, or enjoy food and drink from If Opera’s Cowshed by Homewood restaurant. The fiesta music will be led by the wonderful Wiltshire-based soprano Lynsey Docherty, and there will be opportunities to make your own Carmen-inspired props, meet characters as the opera unfolds around you and enjoy the lovely gardens of Church Farm.
The ever-inventive Jeff Clarke has taken a lesser-known Viennese operetta, The Chocolate Soldier, by OSCAR Straus (not one of the Johanns, and he cut the second S off his name). This 1908 opera bouffe is closely based on George Bernard Shaw’s classic anti-war play Arms and the Man. Shaw, in his uniquely bombastic way was deeply opposed to his play being turned into musical theatre, but the operetta was a great success and earned more royalties than the Irish playwright’s original ever did!
The play is now out of copyright, and Clarke has created a new version for this production by his Opera Della Luna company, long time Iford and If Opera favourites. He has restored much of Shaw’s witty dialogue and reinstated his original characters. The recent performances at Wiltons Music Hall in London received rave reviews, describing Clarke’s new production as “a delight.”
The Chocolate Soldier is in the Saddlespan Auditorium marquee on 11th, 13th and 14th August.
(Incidentally, if you want to see the original Shaw play, it is one of this year’s summer season productions at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, from 6th to 12th August).
On an altogether more boisterous note, If Opera turns back the clock to the height of the baroque era with an evening of Baroque Drinking Songs, on Friday 7th August. Thomas Guthrie and the minstrels of Vache Baroque will provide “a soul-warming tipple of musical entertainment” with songs, jigs, shanties and singalongs whose themes range from gods to lowly humans, royalty to revellers.
The baroque is taken more seriously, but still enjoyably, with Christian Curnyn’s Art of Baroque: Masterclass and Concert, in the adjacent St Mary’s Church. Widely recognised as one of the UK’s leading Baroque specialists – he conducted his Early Opera Company for Giulio Cesare at Grange Opera this summer – Curnyn has been an Iford regular for many years. The open masterclass in the morning will show the creative process as ideas take shape with young singers from If Opera’s repertory ensemble. The afternoon concert will feature the young singers showcasing what they have learned.
The festival ends on Sunday 16th August, with a picnic prom featuring the Syd Lawrence Orchestra and the Marvin Muoneke Quartet, an irresistible mix of big band, swing and jazz in the Saddlespan Auditorium.
For more information and tickets visit ifopera.com