How to forget the travails of the English football team, toiling in a chill South African winter? What about swapping Fabio Capello for Giuseppe Verdi, sipping a glass of wine as you admire fine Italian opera against a backdrop of gorgeous Wiltshire countryside?
The Iford Festival is one of the highlights of summer in the West Country; yet part of its appeal is that few have heard of it. Running from June to August, the festival principally consists of three famous operas, playing for a week each, accompanied by various one-off classical and jazz events.
The setting is wonderful: an exquisite Georgian mansion of honey-coloured Bath stone sits amid splendid Italianate gardens. Opera is staged in an intimate cloister, so you are never more than a few feet from the singers; you feel the resonance, power and delicacy of the human voice more at Iford than at many more prestigious venues. Opera will rarely feel more up-close and emotional.
Iford offers three very different operas this year, all sung in English: ‘La Cenerentola’ (19 June – 3 July) begins the season with Rossini’s comic yet moving take on the Cinderella story; Handel’s ‘Serse’ (’Xerxes’, 9-17 July) explores love and power, two of opera’s great themes, in the hubristic tale of a tyrant’s struggle with his family; and Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’ (24 July – 7 August) is one of the great operas, ranging in emotion from the insouciant to the tragic, incorporating some of the Italian giant’s favourite melodies. Additional weekend musical entertainment throughout the festival flits from jazz to tango, and Cuban to fusion.
Whatever happens at the World Cup or Wimbledon, the Iford Festival offers a perfect blend of music and setting, and a guarantee of quality. England flags not required.
Jonathan Camp
Iford Manor, Bradford on Avon, Nr. Bath
7.30pm (gardens open at 6pm for picnics), Mon to Fri £93, Sat £97. Tel: 01225 448844. www.ifordarts.co.uk
RSS