Bampton Classical Opera

Philemon & Baucis (Gluck) and The Judgement of Paris (Arne)

Nicola Lisle enjoys a magnificent operatic double bill in the heart of west Oxfordshire

Bampton Opera set the bar exceptionally high last year with its acclaimed production of Salieri’s La Grotta di Trofonio and gave itself a hard act to follow. But how magnificently the company rose to the challenge this year with a delightful double bill of ‘divine comedies’.

Once again, company founders and co-directors Jeremy Gray and Gilly French have breathed fresh life into long-forgotten 18th century gems with new translations and their customary sense of fun and mischief.

The company has already experimented with concert versions of Arne’s The Judgement of Paris but here the opera was given the full stage treatment, alongside Gluck’s Philemon and Baucis.

Both operas have undemanding and rather daft plots, but on an unusually balmy summer’s evening in the famous Deanery garden, all that really mattered was their lush scores and the fact that Jeremy Gray’s audacious updating of these mythological tales to a modern airport setting gave the pieces some humour and substance – both gleefully seized upon by the cast who, like the audience, were clearly having a ball.

Tenor Christopher Turner was new to the company last year and has proved a valuable asset with his exceptionally fine singing, articulate phrasing and natural feel for comedy. His performances as Jupiter in Philemon and Baucis and the eponymous shepherd in The Judgement of Paris were arguably the most outstanding of the evening, but I also loved Aoife O’Sullivan’s very seductive Venus in the Arne piece, while Barbara Cole Walton was delightful as young lover Baucis in the Gluck piece, not only hitting the fiendish top Gs with aplomb but making them seem ridiculously easy. As her suitor Philemon, Catherine Backhouse’s rich mezzo was a nice contrast.

An additional pleasure for me was being seated close to the orchestra, which produced some exquisite sounds under the confident baton of Paul Wingfield.

There are two further chances to catch this production, at Westonbirt School (August 29) and St John’s Smith Square, London (September 13). Details at www.bamptonopera.org.

Nicola Lisle 5/5