A festival has been started at the Waterperry Estate near Oxford that promises to grow into something very special. I caught up with one of its trio of founders, producer Guy Withers, to find out more about it before the opening for its fifth anniversary on 11 August.
Guy is one of its three founders along along with conductor Bertie Baigent and theatre director Rebecca Meltzer. These young and very enthusiastic entrepreneurs were introduced to the Waterperry Esate by Rebecca in 2017. “It was a perfect storm for the three of us,” Guy explained. “At the time we’d already developed a great ambition to create a new type of festival, something innovative that could provide a real alternative to the current scene. Waterperry is the perfect place for this. It’s got stunning gardens, an active community that loves art as well as horticulture, an estate that wants to encourage audiences to get involved with art and nature. It’s a lucky match.”
Once the trio proposed the festival, Waterperry agreed to host it. “The first year of performances were 2018,” Guy told me. “We ran a three day festival. It was a long shot. We managed through hard graft and blood, sweat and tears to create something special. Our aims are affordable tickets, high quality art and the promotion of emerging talents. That first season we had a real success with Mozart’s Don Giovanni and the opera Mansfield Park by Jonathan Dove that is now our calling card. Mansfield has toured a good deal and become part of our brand as a company.” Not only is their calling card a contemporary opera but it’s also rather new in its mode of presentation. It’s an immersive production, something that interests Guy a great deal as he’s not all that keen on proscenium arches. “We were able to set it in a ballroom inside the Regency house on the estate with the actors running around you. It’s emblematic of our brand of opera production, a chance to show the kinds of things we want to produce and send around the country. I’m tempted to say that a Waterperry show is Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park.”
Since 2018 the festivals have been growing incrementally. From three days in its first year the festival is now running for over two weeks. “We’re doing 89 performances this year, everything from a full scale and spectacular Carmen to a new dance performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. We’re also presenting a new child-friendly production with the Roald Dahl Estate. We’ve been working with them for the past years to create a production of Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes. Working with Paul Patterson we’ve created a new stage show to bring the poetry to life with a live orchestra and a cast of story tellers. It’s sold out for its run in Holland Park this summer, is touring around the country, and there are 9 performances at the Roald Dahl Museum in Buckinghamshire before it comes home to Waterperry. We also have a Peter Rabbit show for younger children. We took one of Haydn’s string quartets and wove that through the story of Peter Rabbit. It’s beautiful, fast paced and a good introduction to classical music for kids. At the end the children can come up and touch the cello and meet the performers. Part of our aim is to develop the next generation of opera and theatre lovers. It’s my belief that if you can get them from the age of two then you will get them back when they are 30 and over.”
Carmen is the biggest show for this 2023, with the largest cast Waterpetty has assembled so far. All the singers are making a debut in their roles and the aim is to present the best young emerging professionals. Samantha Price will sing Carmen and she’s very excited at taking on this role for the first time. Tenor Xavier Hetherington will be playing Don Jose, his first big UK role after doing things on the continent and for Opera North. “We discovered Samantha through the ROH; and we discovered Xavier in auditions that blew us away. Anna Morrissey who’s directing is from the world of choreography. Movement and dance run through her and I believe she is putting together an exceptionally exciting Carmen, our big blockbuster for 2023.”
As a contrast to Carmen the festival is also doing a double bill for the first time: Handel’s Acis and Galatea paired with Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in the gorgeous, small amphitheatre that seats 150. Guy is directing Dido and Aeneas and Rebecca Melzer is directing Acis and Galatea.
The raison d’etre of this festival is to provide something for everyone, whether they’re two years old or eight or eighty. And the setting is also capable of giving a family a full day out. If you have a ticket for Carmen for 6.30 PM, for instance, you can turn up at the gardens as early as 10.30 AM because your tickets grants you access to the entire estate for the day. You can take your time exploring the frankly stunning gardens, the orchards, the river and the woods. You can enjoy your own picnic in the grounds or go to the tea shop or the festival bar. The ticket also means you can take advantage of any event during the day. On a Saturday, for instance, you could see two children’s show back to back, followed by a matinee opera, afternoon workshops, a cream tea and then a glass of sparkling wine to start the evening.
Listening to Guy Withers I decided that we should think of it as a kind of family-friendly cultural Disney world. It’s a garden of delights, one where you can savour culture, nature, food and friends. Attending the Waterperry Festival is truly making a trip for everything.
The festival runs this year from Friday, 11 August to Sunday, 20 August.
The website is: https://www.waterperryoperafestival.co.uk/