Opera festival could make Buxton a cultural northern powerhouse
Buxton is a modest town, probably too modest for its own good. It needs to shout a bit more about itself if it is to be heard above the clamour of other spa towns and other summer festivals. It won’t ever be a Bath or Harrogate, but its lack of pretension risks undervaluing its attractions set as it is among the Derbyshire Dales. The 40th anniversary of the Buxton Festival is a good time for a reassessment; and after a few days visit some (qualified) celebration seems in order.
Nowadays it appears every British town of any antiquity and size has a festival of music or opera or literature. As with everything there is a hierarchy with some more ostentatious than others (invidious to mention names…) and a few true stand-outs: Edinburgh the top all-rounder; Aldeburgh, a mite self-consciously, has a real musical edge though trading still on Britten and Pears; Bath has local architectural beauties but is a bit of a pump room show-off; Orkney has a disarming freshness all its own, minted in Peter Maxwell Davies. And then there are the young whippersnappers from Blairgowrie to West Cornwall, from Dorset Opera to the Stour in Kent. But Buxton deserves a higher, more distinctive, place in the hierarchy than hitherto. 40 years on from the refurbishment of its Edwardian Opera House, Buxton is deepening and widening its offering. Even a brief visit shows how much is available, how many cultural tastes are being catered for, indeed, possibly too many.
Opera is at Buxton’s core and it needs to keep it there notwithstanding growing competition from the country-house-opera set of Longborough, Glyndebourne, Garsington and now Nevill Holt. This year’s line-up showed – again – what can be achieved in Buxton’s intimate, elegant and purpose-built Opera House: a rave from the grave in the form of Antonio Caldera’s (only rarely revived) Lucia Papiero Dittatore of 1719; an adventurous and locally resonant opera pasticcio in “Georgiana” (of Devonshire fame); a thoroughbred production of Eugene Onegin (with fine direction from Jamie Manton and with Joshua Bloom as Prince Gremin almost stealing the vocal show); an irreverent staging (by comic Opera della Luna) of Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld; and an African Chamber Opera, The Orphan of Koombu, performed by (lots of!) local schoolchildren.
Not bad for a three week-long festival in the midst of rural Derbyshire; and not bad especially given the participation – to name but a few – of stellar musicians of the quality of the Northern Chamber Orchestra (on top form in Onegin under Adrian Kelly’s baton), La Serenissima (which accompanied Lucia Papierio and gave a tinglingly sharp account of Vivaldi and Brescianello works for strings) and the English Concert (who under the superb South African harpsichordist Krystian Bezuidenhout refreshed Bach parts others only rarely reach). And I haven’t even mentioned the books festival which gave generous space to novelists, historians and commentators of all kinds, or the Fringe Festival which offered over two hundred events and added youthful zest to the whole proceedings (from satire through performance art to jazz).
But here’s the rub – how can a festival like Buxton’s continue to spread itself so wide, maintain standards, draw in new audiences (the profile is worryingly “upper aged”) and relate to the wider local community (especially in a rural setting) without greater investment in existing (the Pavillion alongside the Opera House needs some re-imagining) and newly-built venues (there are none and current spaces used are far from ideal)? Buxton has the potential to become a cultural northern powerhouse; but it will need help and longer-term vision if it is to succeed under its newly appointed CEO, Michael Williams, and Artistic Director, Adrian Kelly.