Le Carnaval de Venise (1699), a circus-opera with music by André Campra. 📅 Saturday 30 & Sunday 31 August 📅 Saturday 6 & Sunday 7 September 🕒 3pm ’til late; the opera will start at 5.30pm 📍 The Vache, Chalfont St Giles, HP8 4SD
To celebrate our fifth anniversary, we’re colliding Baroque opera with the electrifying world of the circus – think aerial artists and acrobats! Campra’s dramatic music is a feast of styles and forms; folk dances featuring toe-tapping percussion riffs contrast with lyrical arias and joyful chorus numbers, with lyrics in both French and Italian (oh, and some of our English, too).
The plot of the opera culminates with a ‘play within a play’ to celebrate the Venice Carnival, which proves the perfect opportunity for one of the couples to elope, happy at last.