...spectacle is really a red herring since what is important is not only how the music sounds as a music-drama event, but also how that alliance is presented on the stage...

'However, some producers tend to look upon opera as a dramatic and visual art rather than as a musical one: what is seen is usually very successful, but what is heard is often very dry and uninteresting. The music should have a more dramatic, almost visual atmosphere. I feel that often the conductor has very little input, leaving it instead for the stage director. He may very well apply his own concepts over those of the pre-existing opera, which is, more often than not, distracting. At Midsummer Opera, I am both the artistic and the musical director. Having that sort of control is useful since then casting can be done on purely vocal and musical grounds. Although I am careful to provide the right person for the right role, for me the most important aspects are the music and the singing. I don't like any hint of concept in the production-style at all since the production has to be very economical: with touring work there's not a huge budget for lavish sets, costume or stage-design and that side of it has to be very simple but very striking. I have, initially speaking, Ian Caddy and Roy Bell, who are respectively stage director and designer. Both are fine musicians, and, in my experience, that makes a huge difference since they respond to the music in a way that visually amplifies the existing story. It is terribly straightforward and integrates all aspects of the show: what is seen and what is heard is balanced, without one feature upstaging another. We're putting the music back into opera. By fault of circumstance, we don't have the capability of producing a big, flashy show. Nevertheless, spectacle is really a red herring since what is important is not only how the music sounds as a music-drama event, but also how that alliance is presented on the stage. I think that the only way to do this is to tell the story without any kind of concept being loaded on top.'

But there is an historical precedent for lavish, spectacle-filled productions. For example, the founding of The Royal Academy of Music in 1719 was hardly for musical reasons alone. Despite the direct involvement of Handel, their productions were extremely lavish, including fireworks, deus ex machina, waterfalls and the like. The role of the music seemed subordinate to the visual.

I feel that the Wagnerian concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk has existed throughout the whole of operatic history...

'The opera designers of the eighteenth century were obsessed with spectacle: the operatic language of the day was full of special effects, which, in our case, can only be evoked through the simple set, lighting and the way the drama is articulated. We don't feel the need for spectacle and instead rely on the way in which characters interact with one another. In opera, this is a musical relationship, but there is also the question of the physical language the characters use. For example, so-called Baroque gesture was a code where certain movements meant certain things - a language that everyone, including the audience, knew. Opera contains an intimate relationship between the music and the text: the former brings out the rhetorical and dramatic gestures of the latter. In the case of the singers, however, there would not only be the gesture in terms of sound, but also of physical movement; these were accentuated by completely standardised costumes. On top of that was a framework that was intentionally huge. I feel that the Wagnerian concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk has existed throughout the whole of operatic history - he made it the centre of everyone's attention since, before, there were other distractions, such as the fact that it was often a social event. Today people regard Baroque movement and period style in one of two ways: they either see it as meaningless, or they see it in the light of the melodramatic, hand-on-forehead style that has come to represent bad acting. In fact, it is neither, just good stylised classical acting. Few things are more stylised than opera, which is not what might be referred to as naturalistic drama, so its artificiality is in a way its realism.'

In a way, this sounds as if it is a mission statement for Midsummer Opera.

'Very much so: the first show of our reformed company is going to be a one-off concert performance of Rossini's La Donna del Lago. In two years' time, we will present a staged performance of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. We have already discussed the approach and are planning a performance very much in the vein of an extension of stylised Baroque performance into its 19th-century form. The initial stage show next year will be a revised period presentation of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Malcolm Arnold's The Dancing Master, written in 1952 and based on a Restoration comedy by William Wycherley. It was performed once in 1962, just with piano, so we shall be giving a world premiere of what is in effect a newly commissioned chamber version (the original being for symphony orchestra). In the past we have done an extensive repertoire, and are also looking to revise performances of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi fan tutte, Verdi's Rigoletto and Handel's Acis and Galatea.'

Midsummer Opera's performance of La Donna del Lago will take place at St John's, Smith Square, London, on November 27th, 2000. MusicTeachers.co.uk will update readers on any further developments in this exciting and creative venture.