Festivals
Since July 1979, the Opera House and theatre complex has been home to the Buxton Festival, which runs for about two weeks in mid-July and has developed into one of Britain's largest opera-based festivals. Typically, it includes a Handel opera (with conductors such as Harry Christophers) and other rarely seen operas as well as more popular classics. Running alongside it is the Buxton Festival Fringe. It is popular as a warm-up for the Edinburgh Fringe, and it now claims to be the largest 'true' fringe festival in the UK. Since 1994, the Opera House has also hosted the annual three-week-long International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, attracting audiences from all over the UK and from abroad. It is an adjudicated competition among amateur G&S societies and also presents professional performances and fringe events.
The Opera House presents over 400 performances each year. Since 2004, the Opera House and the neighbouring Pavilion Gardens have hosted the annual Four Four Time music festival which sees a wide variety of musical performances over one week in February. Performers for the 2008 festival included Marc Almond, Richard Hawley, The Stranglers and Boy George.
Read more about this topic: Buxton Opera House
Famous quotes containing the word festivals:
“This is certainly not the place for a discourse about what festivals are for. Discussions on this theme were plentiful during that phase of preparation and on the whole were fruitless. My experience is that discussion is fruitless. What sets forth and demonstrates is the sight of events in action, is living through these events and understanding them.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping—rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas—But, goodness, why need they do it?”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)