La pazza giornata

After a Sunday of clearing-up at the Deanery, and stowing of set and props, it was back on the road for our scenery van for our final trip to Buxton.  Our ‘other’ cast, under the direction of conductor Robin Newton and revival director Nicola Samer, performed magnificently.  It’s sad to realise this is probably the last-ever performance of our Marcos Portugal Figaro – and one wonders when it will next be performed at all.  Let’s hope that David Cranmer, who edited the manuscripts for us in Lisbon, can achieve further productions of this fascinating and delightfully light-hearted take on the Beaumarchais play.  The Buxton audience clearly loved it and the laughter was loud and long – especially for Figaro’s antics building a bed delivered from Ikea Sevilla and for Gilly’s classic rhyming lines about relativity when Figaro pretends that he had jumped from the window.  The hard work put in by Anthony Hall in building the set was amply repaid by its appearance on stage under the sensitive lighting of John Bishop.  We’re so pleased the wonderful Buxton Festival had the vision to take this so lovely opera.