Bampton Opera’s double bill this year offers a UK premiere and a revival, discovers Nicola Lisle

When Bampton Opera directors Jeremy Gray and Gilly French decided to stage Gluck’s one-act opera Philemon and Baucis, they had one major concern. Would they be able to find a soprano capable of singing the top Gs required for the role of Baucis?

And then, by chance, Canadian soprano Barbara Cole Walton entered Bampton’s 2015 Young Singers’ competition, and they knew they had found what they were looking for.

Philemon and Baucis forms part of a double bill, Divine Comedies, which will be staged at Bampton’s famous Deanery Garden in July before going on to Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire and St John’s Smith Square, London.

The other half of the double bill is Arne’s The Judgement of Paris, which Bampton first put on in Oxford, Wotton and London in 2010 to mark the tercentenary of the composer’s birth.

“It’s a very clever little piece, with a wickedly witty libretto by William Congreve,” says Jeremy, who co-founded Bampton Opera with his wife, Gilly, in 1993. “When we did it before it was the libretto that sparked off production ideas, so ever since we’ve been wanting to do it at Bampton and stage it more fully.

“So we decided this year we would do The Judgement of Paris, but then we needed something else to go with it. Because The Judgement of Paris is mythological, Philemon and Baucis seemed to fit with that, and the casting and orchestra were very similar, so they make good bedfellows.”

Philemon and Baucis was written in 1769 for the wedding of Maria Amalia, Archduchess of Austria, and Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, and is part of a longer piece, La Feste d’Apollo, which consists of a prologue and three acts, each based on a story from Greek mythology. Bampton’s production will be the UK premiere.

“As far as we know it hasn’t been staged since the premiere, and other than a recording by Les Talens Lyriques in 2006 I don’t think it’s been heard at all,” Jeremy says.

“There’s no printed edition, so we’re working from a manuscript in the Royal College of Music, which is not Gluck’s autograph manuscript, but it seems a very accurate copy.”

And what of all those high notes that Barbara has to tackle?

“When I first saw it I thought I had to sing eight top Gs, but actually I only have to do six, so that makes all the difference!” she jokes.

“It’s a very long aria, about seven minutes long, and it’s very high! So it’s a challenge but it’s very fulfilling to sing something that I feel is written for my voice.”

For Jeremy, putting on Philemon and Baucis is another Bampton dream come true.

“Gilly and I are completely besotted with Gluck, because he’s so lyrical,” he says. “This piece is wonderful to sing, and although the story is quite slight, that becomes an interesting challenge dramatically because you have to take the bare bones of the story and then graft something else onto that, which I hope doesn’t go against the spirit of the thing but gives it more dramatic interest.

“Gluck was one of the great innovators of operas. There’s lots of variety and texture, and although it’s a small orchestra it’s used very effectively.

“So we absolutely love this piece. We think it’s amazing.”

Bampton Opera: Divine Comedies

The Deanery Garden, Bampton

July 22 & 23, 7pm

Tickets: 01993 851142 or http://bamptonopera.org/onlinebooking.htm