International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival

The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is held every summer at the Opera House

Buxton Opera House

Buxton Opera House is in The Square, Buxton, Derbyshire, England. It is a 902-seat opera house that hosts the annual Buxton Festival and International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, among others, as well as pantomime at Christmas, musicals and other entertainments year-round. Hosting live...

in Buxton

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. The three-week Festival of Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

performances and fringe events attracts thousands of visitors, including performers, supporters, and G&S enthusiasts from all around the world. It was established in 1994 by Ian Smith and his son Neil to enhance the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the works of Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

. It also has a goal of reinstating G&S and the performing arts in schools in Britain. Since 2010, the Festival has added a week of performances in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Gettysburg is a borough that is the county seat, part of the Gettysburg Battlefield, and the eponym for the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. The town hosts visitors to the Gettysburg National Military Park and has 3 institutions of higher learning: Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg College, and...

Description of the Festival

Each summer, beginning with the last weekend in July (or start of August if August begins on a Saturday), the Festival includes over three weeks of nightly G&S operas and dozens of daytime fringe activities. The Festival has been held in Buxton

Buxton

, England, every year since 1994, but it has experimented with additional weeks of the Festival in other towns or cities, including Eastbourne

Eastbourne

Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...

, England once, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

twice, Berkeley, California

Berkeley, California

Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

once and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

, beginning in 2010. The festival attracts approximately 20,000 visitors and about 3,000 performers to Buxton each year.

Sky Arts

Sky Arts

Sky Arts and Sky Arts HD is the brand name for a group of art-oriented television channels offering 18 hours a day of programmes dedicated to highbrow arts, including theatrical performances, movies, documentaries and music...

notes that the "Festival, which runs at Buxton’s beautiful Opera House

Buxton Opera House

, is one of the most colourful, melodic and joyous festivals of musical theatre you will come across. Celebrating the timeless, waspishly satirical lyrics of W. S. Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

and the brilliant musical inventiveness of Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

, the festival is quite simply the world’s biggest event dedicated to the Savoy opera

Savoy opera

The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...

s. ... It is forward-looking and fun presenting contemporary as well as traditional productions of G&S."

The competition

At the core of the Festival is a competition of a dozen or more amateur G&S performing troupes who travel to Buxton from all over the world to present their shows. Over the three weeks, "the best non-professional groups from the UK and overseas compete for the International Champions title." A professional adjudicator critique

Critique

Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic analysis of a written or oral discourse. Critique is commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgement, but it can also involve merit recognition, and in the philosophical tradition it also means a methodical practice of doubt...

s each amateur performance immediately after the curtain falls. The adjudicator then scores each performance, and both group and individual awards are announced at the end of the Festival. At the first Festival in 1994, first prize was awarded to the production of Utopia Limited presented by the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Hancock County, Maine

Hancock County, Maine

Hancock County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maine. As of 2010, the population was 54,418. Its county seat is Ellsworth. It was incorporated on June 25, 1789...

, USA. The Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company

Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company

Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company, based in Derby, England, produces the works of Gilbert & Sullivan. The company have won the amateur competition at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival an unprecedented six times and have been called "one of the most highly acclaimed nonprofessional...

has won the first prize more often than any other company (six times); and the South Anglia Savoy Players, the only company to have performed in every Festival since the first one, have won four times and placed second four times. Festival Productions, Ireland, won in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Individual awards are also presented for performers, directors and musical directors.

Some groups compete year after year at the Festival, but some companies, especially those travelling from North America, South Africa, Australia and other distant places, may only visit occasionally or once. Some groups meet and rehearse entirely at the Festival, including the internet group SavoyNet, which has competed each year since 1998 and was the first company to present all 13 extant G&S operas at the Festival. The Festival organizers also rehearse a Festival Production (for which all rehearsals take place during the Festival itself) and one or more "Youth Productions" (for performers under 18) during the course of the Festival each year.

Professional productions

In addition to the amateur productions that are presented and compete at the Festival each year, there are weekend professional performances given by companies such as the Carl Rosa Opera Company

Carl Rosa Opera Company

The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl August Nicholas Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company survived Rosa's death in 1889, and continued to present opera in English on tour until 1960, when it was...

, Opera della Luna

Opera della Luna

Opera della Luna, founded in 1994, is a British touring theatre troupe of actor-singers focusing on comic works. Led by artistic director Jeff Clarke, it takes its name from Haydn's operatic setting of Goldoni's farce Il mondo della luna...

, the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players

New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players

New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players is a professional repertory theatre company, based in New York City that has specialized in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan for over 35 years...

, Charles Court Opera and the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, which has starred such well-known G&S performers as Richard Suart

Richard Suart

Richard Suart is an English opera singer and actor, who has specialised in the comic roles of Gilbert and Sullivan operas and in operetta, as well as in avant-garde modern operas...

, Simon Butteriss, Bruce Graham, Gillian Knight

Gillian Knight

Gillian Knight is an English singer and actress, known for her performances in the contralto roles of the Savoy Operas. After six years starring in these roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, beginning in 1959, Knight began a grand opera career.Knight joined Sadler's Wells Opera in 1968...

, Barry Clark

Barry Clark (singer)

Barry Clark is an English opera singer. Beginning in the 1970s, Clark played tenor roles in the Savoy Operas for over a decade with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. He then sang in various opera companies, including New Sadler's Wells and Scottish Opera, and played in musicals on the West End...

, Michael Rayner, Patricia Leonard

Patricia Leonard

Patricia Leonard was an English opera singer, best known for her performances in mezzo-soprano and contralto roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company....

, Donald Maxwell, Jill Pert, Janet Cowley, Gareth Jones, Charlotte Page, Oliver White, Rebecca Bottone, Ian Belsey

Ian Belsey

Ian Belsey is a lyric baritone specializing in opera of the bel canto period, but is best known for his performances in light music and operetta, particularly the works of Gilbert and Sullivan.-Biography:...

, the Opera Babes

Opera Babes

The Opera Babes are a crossover classical music duo, consisting of Karen England , mezzo soprano, and Rebecca Knight , soprano....

and Eric Roberts. John Owen Edwards or David Russell Hulme

David Russell Hulme

David Russell Hulme is a Welsh conductor and musicologist known for his research and publications on the music of Sir Arthur Sullivan, the Victorian era composer who, with Sir W. S...

often music direct the company. Sky Arts calls these performers "some of the UK’s finest exponents of musical theatre". Of the productions by the G&S Opera Company, which is produced by the festival organizers, and specifically their 2010 production of Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....

, reviewer Raymond J. Walker wrote:

"With a reputation for strong casts [and] energetic delivery, traditionally fresh interpretations are brought to roles familiar to a large proportion of the Buxton audiences. With good stars like Jill Pert and Richard Suart in key roles, we were assured of an excellent evening’s entertainment. ... Care is always taken with the staging and lighting of these Buxton productions and, as with Princess Ida
Princess Ida
Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was their eighth operatic collaboration of fourteen. Princess Ida opened at the Savoy Theatre on January 5, 1884, for a run of 246 performances...

last year, they can match a West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

show. ... Throughout, the chorus was outstanding. ... the strength of singing from the twenty-strong chorus in forte passages was spectacular".

In August and September 2010, the G&S Opera Company presented its first production outside of the Festival, at Oxford Castle

Oxford Castle

Oxford Castle is a large, partly ruined Norman medieval castle situated on the west edge of Oxford in Oxfordshire, England. The original moated, wooden motte and bailey castle was replaced with stone in the 11th century and played an important role in the conflict of the Anarchy...

Venues and fringe events

All of the competition performances and the weekend professional performances are given in the Frank Matcham

Frank Matcham

Frank Matcham was a famous English theatrical architect. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery.-Early career:...

-designed Buxton Opera House

Buxton Opera House

(built in 1903), a 902-seat opera house with excellent acoustics. These performances are nearly always accompanied by the festival's "National Festival Orchestra". A review of a 2010 performance noted, "The music was up to Buxton's usual high standard, with the orchestra (leader, Sally Robinson) ... giving a superb and sprightly reading of the Overture and score throughout." The Festival also holds performances and fringe activities in the 360-seat Pavilion Arts Centre (formerly the Paxton Theatre), the annexed Octagon auditorium and in other venues.

The numerous daytime "fringe" activities have included performances, master classes and lectures by members of the original D'Oyly Carte Opera Company

D'Oyly Carte Opera Company

The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...

(such as Valerie Masterson

Valerie Masterson

Margaret Valerie Masterson , is a retired English opera singer, a lecturer and Vice-President of British Youth Opera. After study in Italy, she began to sing opera in Europe...

, Thomas Round

Thomas Round

Thomas Round is a retired English opera singer and actor, best known for his performances in the tenor roles of the Savoy Operas and in grand opera....

, Gillian Knight

Gillian Knight

, Kenneth Sandford

Kenneth Sandford

Kenneth Sandford was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in baritone roles of the Savoy Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan....

, John Ayldon

John Ayldon

John Ayldon is an English opera singer, best known for his performances in bass-baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.-Life and career:...

and John Reed

John Reed (actor)

John Lamb Reed, OBE was an English actor, dancer and singer, known for his nimble performances in the principal comic roles of the Savoy Operas, particularly with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company...

) and other professionals, and a late night Festival Club, where cabaret performances are given each evening after the opera, and sometimes a G&S singalong is conducted. There is also a G&S memorabilia fair, providing a chance for collectors and gift hunters to buy and sell G&S recordings, DVDs, books, scores, figurines and other items of interest. Fringe events also include recitals, concerts, lectures and productions of lesser-known works by Gilbert without Sullivan, Sullivan without Gilbert and works that played as companion pieces with the Gilbert and Sullivan operas during their original productions and later.

Effect and allure of the Festival

The Festival serves as a "lightning-rod" of G&S activity worldwide. G&S performers and audiences from one part of the world can see performances by groups from other parts of the world. Performances in the traditional style mix with avant garde ones, and G&S scholars can communicate with a wide audience of enthusiasts.

Buxton, an intimate, yet bustling spa town located in the Peak District

Peak District

The Peak District is an upland area in central and northern England, lying mainly in northern Derbyshire, but also covering parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and South and West Yorkshire....

about an hour southeast of Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, has proved to be an excellent setting for summer opera festivals, with good choices for lodging, dining and local sightseeing. There are nearby castles (for example, Peveril Castle

Peveril Castle

Peveril Castle is a medieval building overlooking the village of Castleton in the English county of Derbyshire. Its site provides views across the Hope Valley and Cave Dale. The castle is named after its founder, William Peveril, who held lands in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire on behalf of the king...

), stately homes (e.g. Chatsworth House

Chatsworth House

Chatsworth House is a stately home in North Derbyshire, England, northeast of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield . It is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and has been home to his family, the Cavendish family, since Bess of Hardwick settled at Chatsworth in 1549.Standing on the east bank of the...

, Haddon Hall

Haddon Hall

Haddon Hall is an English country house on the River Wye at Bakewell, Derbyshire, one of the seats of the Duke of Rutland, occupied by Lord Edward Manners and his family. In form a medieval manor house, it has been described as "the most complete and most interesting house of [its]...

, Hardwick Hall

Hardwick Hall

Hardwick Hall , in Derbyshire, is one of the most significant Elizabethan country houses in England. In common with its architect Robert Smythson's other works at both Longleat House and Wollaton Hall, Hardwick Hall is one of the earliest examples of the English interpretation of the Renaissance...

and Calke Abbey

Calke Abbey

Calke Abbey is a Grade I listed country house near Ticknall, Derbyshire, England, in the care of the charitable National Trust.The site was an Augustinian priory from the 12th century until its dissolution by Henry VIII...

); and numerous limestone caverns, including Poole's Cavern

Poole's Cavern

Poole's Cavern or Poole's Hole is a 2 million year old, natural limestone cave south of Buxton in the Peak District, in the county of Derbyshire, England...

, right at the edge of Buxton. The small size of the town allows visitors and performers to meet and mingle freely during the course of the Festival. Jean Dufty, in Gilbert & Sullivan News wrote: "The amateur performances were of a very high standard.... There is a lovely atmosphere in Buxton of Gilbert and Sullivan thriving, being enjoyed, and drawing everyone together as a family." The Festival has developed "a reputation for being one of the friendliest musical festivals anywhere, with people returning year after year to soak up its special atmosphere."

In addition, the Festival serves to raise awareness and funds for the Festival organizers' efforts to re-introduce G&S into British schools. The Festival has been featured in several British television shows and in the documentary films Oh Mad Delight and A Source of Innocent Merriment. Sky Arts broadcast its features about the Festival and Gilbert and Sullivan several times in 2010.

Recordings

Recordings are available from the Festival organizers of most of the productions that have been seen at the Festival, including those by the professional Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company.

Festival information

International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival official website
Fan site with extensive Festival information, reviews and photos
Documentary film Oh Mad Delight
Documentary film A Source of Innocent Merriment
Davis, Carol and Victoria Willoughby. 2004 description of the Festival
Garnett, Stephen. "Buxton Festival 2008 – A Summer Celebration of Gilbert & Sullivan", This England, Summer 2008 issue (vol. 41, no.2), pp. 20–23
Lee, Bernard. "Gilbert and Sullivan are still going strong after a century", Sheffield Telegraph, 1 August 2008
Christiansen, Rupert. "The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival: a uniquely British phenomenon", The Telegraph, 17 July 2009
Buxton lodging information
Excerpt of SkyArts video about the Festival 2010

Companies that have performed at the festival

Professional

Carl Rosa Opera Company
Carl Rosa Opera Company
The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl August Nicholas Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company survived Rosa's death in 1889, and continued to present opera in English on tour until 1960, when it was...
Charles Court Opera
The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players
Opera della Luna
Opera della Luna
Opera della Luna, founded in 1994, is a British touring theatre troupe of actor-singers focusing on comic works. Led by artistic director Jeff Clarke, it takes its name from Haydn's operatic setting of Goldoni's farce Il mondo della luna...
The Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company

Amateur UK award winners

Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company
Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company
Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company, based in Derby, England, produces the works of Gilbert & Sullivan. The company have won the amateur competition at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival an unprecedented six times and have been called "one of the most highly acclaimed nonprofessional...

(six awards)
St Mary's Catholic High School
St Mary's Catholic High School (Wigan)
St Mary's Catholic High School is a Roman Catholic Maths and Computing College in Astley, Greater Manchester.-External links:*...

(Manchester) (highest ranking of a high school group)
South Anglia Savoy Players (three awards)

Foreign amateur companies

Actors Opera of New York
The Blue Hill Troupe (New York City)
Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Hancock County (Maine, U.S.) (one award)
Festival Productions (Ireland) (three awards)
The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Chester County (Pennsylvania, U.S.)
The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Houston (Texas, U.S.) (one award)
Lamplighters Music Theatre of San Francisco (one award)
Savoy Company
Savoy Company
Founded in 1901, The Savoy Company is the oldest amateur theater company in the world dedicated solely to the production of the 13 surviving operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Savoy Company has performed at the spacious Academy of Music and Longwood Gardens,...

(Philadelphia, U.S.)
SavoyNet, an email-based G&S listserv, with performers from around the world
Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society (U.S.)
St. Anne's Music and Drama Society (Toronto, Canada)

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