This summer the Festival was delighted to work in partnership with St Thomas Moore School to encourage some of their students to attend the Festival. We welcomed students to three different Festival events and arranged for them to interview someone from the show about the production.
The first group of students attended a performance of the community opera Tarka the Otter before meeting Festival Chief Executive Glyn Foley. Here is a snippet from their interview:
What is your favourite part of working at the festival?
I think my favourite part is when all our efforts throughout the year come together for shows like Tarka the Otter. So when you’re putting together all the orchestras, schools, local adults and dancers to make something which works as a whole, it’s very rewarding, and when you see the audience’s reaction to that, that’s really why I do it.
What do you look for when choosing people and events for the Festival?
Variety. First of all we choose our opera programme which is mostly performed in the Opera House. We aim to include a range of different opera from different periods of history, so this year we have a Handel opera from the baroque period, we’ve got a French opera from the 19th century, and we’ve got an Italian opera from the 19th century, all quite different. So once we’ve got the bones of our programme we choose three or four operas from touring companies to complete the programme. Then we add our afternoon concerts and the literary talks. So our programme aims to keep people busy, if you want to, you can go to almost every event, or you can just do one, and then move onto Chatsworth, or go for a walk in the hills.
When you put on productions like Tarka the Otter, do you find that they are harder because so many people are involved?
Yes, especially a community opera. There are different problems. With our own operas in the opera house, everyone there is professional, from the orchestra, the chorus, the principles, the director, the technicians, everybody. So we’re paying them to the schedule that we’ve worked out, so in some ways, that’s easier. Once you’ve told somebody what to do and you’re paying them, they get on with it and do it.
Community operas present lots of different problems, because they’re performed by people who aren’t paid. With Tarka the Otter, that you’ve seen today, the orchestra, the director and the designer and the three principle soloists were paid, but everybody else, the dancers, community chorus, the people singing on stage and all the schools involved, they’re all giving themselves freely. You can’t tell them what to do in such a way. You have to work with them to make sure they want to do the programme.
The second group of young people attended the ballet Beauty and the Beast performed by Ballet Cymru. The students then met Artistic Director Darius James and two of the principal dancers. Here is their review of the show:
On Friday 15th of July 2011 we went to see the matinee performance of the ballet of Beauty and the Beastat Buxton Opera House. It was performed by the Welsh ballet company – Ballet Cymru. We think that it was very good and that we would like to go and see another of the group’s performances.
Although it was the same old tale of a young girl, a handsome prince that becomes a beast and a rose, the ballet company added its own personal twist to the story through the choreography and the costumes.
We thought that the costumes were one of the best elements because of the exotic taste they added to the ballet. We would especially like to mention the beast’s costume as it was extremely modern and interesting. The beast danced around the stage on stilts which we think made the beast seem more menacing. Another of our favourite costumes were the ones belonging to the four girls. They were all dressed elegantly in red and black dresses, each the same but with a different element perhaps showing a different personality.
Overall we think the ballet was a huge success and we would definitely recommend it to anyone else that was thinking of going to see it themselves. Beauty and the Beast was a great story to choose and the company interpreted it very well.
Finally a group of students were invited to the dress rehearsal of the The Italian Girl in London by Bampton Classical Opera. After the rehearsal they interviewed Director Jeremy Grey.
We went to see the dress rehearsal of The Italian Girl In London and it was a very good experience and opportunity because we actually got to see what happens and the amount of effort it takes to make these performances come together.
The staging is quite a sight. Although it was a dress rehearsal we were still able to get the feeling of London and Italy on the same stage. It is fantastic experience as you can see all the things they have to test and practice such as the lights and music. The dress rehearsal was also good because you can see the problems that occurred as well as the things that were really good.
Whilst the actors played their characters superbly the orchestra had an amazing role. They performed with accuracy and a very professional quality, beautifully timed with the singers/actors. Fantastic. I think that the actors portrayed their roles excellently and you could tell who everyone was and what they did. Also the music fitted in very well with the actors and their actions. It is good that they used most of the stage and their space effectively. It is full of humour and entertainment. The actors work really hard to keep in time with the music and use actions and facial expression to convey their feelings and to fill their characters personality. We also enjoyed the use of props and how the performers interacted with them. They used tables, chairs, coat hooks and umbrella stands.
Thank you to all who took part in this project, we hope you enjoyed the Festival!
Buxton Festival 
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