More than 160 events will be staged during the 2025 Buxton International Festival which will feature nine operas including four chamber opera commissions.
Highlights include three French operas: Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet played by The Orchestra of Opera North, Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Orphée with Vache Baroque and Francis Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine—half of a double bill alongside Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti in collaboration with Norwich Theatre.
Mozart’s The Impresario will be presented by Opera Zuid from the Netherlands, and there will be four chamber opera commissions called Shorts. The operas are Inevitable, Life Gets Stretched, Disorderly House and Tears Are Not Meant to Stay Inside.
Michael Williams, the festival’s chief executive, said, “this year we’ll honour the festival’s founder Malcolm Fraser by staging a new production of Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, last seen in Buxton Opera House for Fraser’s fledgling festival in 1980, helping to launch the careers of opera superstars Sir Thomas Allen and Donald Maxwell.”
Adrian Kelly, BIF’s artistic director, added, “while opera is an art form with a rich history, it’s vital that we invest in its future too. In commissioning Shorts, Buxton is offering opportunities to the next generation of opera makers both on stage and behind the scenes. We’re delighted to be working with these exciting young creatives.”
Buxton International Festival will run from Thursday 10 until Sunday 27 July.