Buxton Opera House
Encyclopedia
Buxton
Buxton is a spa town in Derbyshire, England. It has the highest elevation of any market town in England. Located close to the county boundary with Cheshire to the west and Staffordshire to the south, Buxton is described as "the gateway to the Peak District National Park"...
, Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
, England. It is a 902-seat opera house that hosts the annual Buxton Festival
Buxton Festival
The Buxton Festival is an annual summer festival of opera, music, and a literary series, held in Buxton, Derbyshire in England since it began in July 1979.-History:...
and International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is held every summer at the Opera House in Buxton, Derbyshire, England. The three-week Festival of Gilbert and Sullivan performances and fringe events attracts thousands of visitors, including performers, supporters, and G&S enthusiasts from all...
, among others, as well as pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
at Christmas, musicals
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
and other entertainments year-round. Hosting live performances until 1927, the theatre then was used mostly as a cinema until 1976. In 1979, it was refurbished and reopened as a venue for live performance.
History
It was built in 1903 and designed by Frank MatchamFrank Matcham
Frank Matcham was a famous English theatrical architect. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery.-Early career:...
, one of Britain's finest theatre architects. He also designed two famous London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
theatres: the London Palladium
London Palladium
The London Palladium is a 2,286 seat West End theatre located off Oxford Street in the City of Westminster. From the roster of stars who have played there and many televised performances, it is arguably the most famous theatre in London and the United Kingdom, especially for musical variety...
(1910) and the London Coliseum
Coliseum Theatre
The London Coliseum is an opera house and major performing venue on St. Martin's Lane, central London. It is one of London's largest and best equipped theatres and opened in 1904, designed by theatrical architect Frank Matcham , for impresario Oswald Stoll...
(1904).
The Opera House ran as a successful theatre, receiving touring companies until 1927, when it was turned into a cinema. Silent films were shown until 1932 when the theatre was wired for sound and could present ‘talkies’. The Opera House also became the venue for an annual summer theatre festival from 1936 to 1942, two of them in conjunction with Lillian Bayliss and her London-based Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
company. After the Second World War, the theatre continued to serve as a cinema, gradually falling into disrepair until it was closed in 1976 and renovated in 1979.
Since then, the Opera House has been a full-time venue for stage productions, presenting approximately 450 performances per year, including opera, dance, musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
, pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
, comedy, drama, children’s shows and concerts. The theatre is staffed by a small full-time technical crew for all the backstage work, setting up all the shows and artists that appear. Volunteers from the local community are also employed for front-of-house duties including bar work and ushers.
Refurbishment and reception
In October 1976 the Opera House was closed and rumours circulated that it would never reopen. In 1979, however, a major restoration took place with people both from the local area and across the UK helping with the work. An orchestra pitOrchestra pit
An orchestra pit is the area in a theater in which musicians perform. Orchestral pits are utilized in forms of theatre that require music or in cases when incidental music is required...
was also added to the original Frank Matcham design which was otherwise largely unaltered since 1903.
In the early 1990s, it was determined that more work was needed to repair and modernise the theatre. Therefore, between October 1999 and June 2001 an extensive program of both internal and external restoration took place. In February 2007, another refurbishment was completed at the Opera House that saw the installation of air conditioning in the gallery and backstage area, new seats in the gallery and upper circle, a new get-in lift to replace the ramp and new backstage working lights as well as re-wiring and painting the backstage area and dressing rooms. The current capacity is 902 seats.
In 2011, FT Magazine
FT Magazine
FT Magazine is a supplement to the weekend edition of the Financial Times newspaper. It covers world events, politics and the arts.It is only included with the UK & Ireland edition of the Financial Times; however, articles from it are also printed in sections of the USA edition of the Financial...
featured an article on opera house design. In the section called "My favourite experiences", the writer gives his impression of numerous opera houses in Europe, Asia and North America, commenting that houses "designed by the Viennese architectural firm of Fellner and Helmer (the Zurich Opera House
Zurich Opera House
Opernhaus Zürich is an opera house in the Swiss city of Zurich. It has been the home of the Zurich Opera since 1891.- History :...
is [an] example) ... represent a near-ideal marriage of size, acoustic and decorative beauty. Their British equivalents are those designed by Frank Matcham
Frank Matcham
Frank Matcham was a famous English theatrical architect. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery.-Early career:...
– best of all the Buxton Opera House."
Theatre complex
The theatre complex also includes the adjacent Pavilion Gardens, the 369-seat Pavilion Arts Centre (rebuilt in 2010; formerly the Paxton Theatre), and the Octagon Hall auditorium (built in 1875), as well as a two-storey restaurant with a bar and gift shop. The arts centre stage area can be converted into a separate 93-seat studio theatre.Festivals
Since July 1979, the Opera House and theatre complex has been home to the Buxton FestivalBuxton Festival
The Buxton Festival is an annual summer festival of opera, music, and a literary series, held in Buxton, Derbyshire in England since it began in July 1979.-History:...
, which runs for about two weeks in mid-July and has developed into one of Britain's largest opera-based festivals. Typically, it includes a Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
opera (with conductors such as Harry Christophers) and other rarely seen operas as well as more popular classics. Running alongside it is the Buxton Festival Fringe. It is popular as a warm-up for the Edinburgh Fringe
Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August...
, and it now claims to be the largest 'true' fringe festival in the UK. Since 1994, the Opera House has also hosted the annual three-week-long International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is held every summer at the Opera House in Buxton, Derbyshire, England. The three-week Festival of Gilbert and Sullivan performances and fringe events attracts thousands of visitors, including performers, supporters, and G&S enthusiasts from all...
, attracting audiences from all over the UK and from abroad. It is an adjudicated competition among amateur G&S societies and also presents professional performances and fringe events.
The Opera House presents over 400 performances each year. Since 2004, the Opera House and the neighbouring Pavilion Gardens have hosted the annual Four Four Time music festival which sees a wide variety of musical performances over one week in February. Performers for the 2008 festival included Marc Almond
Marc Almond
Marc Almond is an English singer-songwriter and musician, who originally found fame as half of the seminal synthpop/New Wave duo Soft Cell...
, Richard Hawley
Richard Hawley
Richard Hawley is a guitarist, singer-songwriter and producer. After his first band Treebound Story broke up, Hawley found success as a member of Britpop band Longpigs in the 1990s. He later joined the band Pulp, led by his friend Jarvis Cocker...
, The Stranglers
The Stranglers
The Stranglers are an English punk/rock music group.Scoring some 23 UK top 40 singles and 17 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are the longest-surviving and most "continuously successful" band to have originated in the UK punk scene of the mid to late 1970s...
and Boy George
Boy George
Boy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...
.