Open-air approach to operas

AN opera festival that last year had to be cut back to a single weekend due to the coronavirus pandemic is returning with seven open-air productions staged over 10 days this summer.

Running from August 12 to 21, the Waterperry Opera Festival will also feature a variety of covid-safe workshops, masterclasses, talks and pop-up performances in the grounds of Waterperry House, near Oxford.

The productions include Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, Lili Boulanger’s Clairières dans le Ciel and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge.

Following its successful reception last year, Rebecca Meltzer’s dramatisation of Jonathan Dove’s Ariel, based on Shakespeare’s character from The Tempest, will return to Waterperry’s Mary Rose Garden.

Artistic director Guy Withers said: “We see our festival as a wonderful opportunity to bring music and hope to our audiences, when so little live music is being performed.

“We cannot wait to invite audiences to escape into the wild and immerse themselves in the magic of the music and nature we have on offer this summer.”

Tickets go on sale on Monday, May 31. For more information, visit www.
waterperryoperafestival.co.uk