About Us
Northampton Festival Opera was formed as Central Festival Opera in 1988 to provide full-scale opera productions of high quality in Northampton. It is very much a community/regional project combining local, regional, national and international talent and was created in the belief that local singers would welcome the opportunity of working alongside leading singers, directors and conductors in high quality professional productions. The company has also been able to include a number of other young people in its work as dancers, childrens choruses, actors, make-up artists, stage crew, props makers, scenery designers, builders and painters and costume designers and makers.
The first CFO production was Mozart’s The Magic Flute in 1990 and since then it has staged a major production each Spring at Derngate, Northampton (in 1995 it staged a week of opera with productions of Carmen and Cosi fan tutte). In 1995 CFO staged a double-bill of Offenbach’s The Song of Fortunio and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas for the Derngate Enterprises Opera on the Lawn season. This was followed by further open-air productions in 1996 (Madam Butterfly and The Beggar’s Opera) and 1997 (The Magic Flute).
In June 1998 the company staged an Opera Prom on the opening night of the new Northampton Music & Arts Festival in the Great Hall of the Guildhall. Later in the same month the company staged a double-bill of Offenbach’s The Two Blind Men and Donizetti’s La Romanzesca at the Great Elm Festival in Somerset.
In 1999 the company made two appearances in London. In February it gave two performances of rarely staged operas, Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon and Donizetti’s Viva La Mamma, as part of the inaugural Mayfair Arts Festival and in August twelve performances of Puccini’s La Boheme as part of the Evening Standard Holland Park Opera Season.
The quality and scope of the company’s work has developed over the past ten years with enthusiastic support from East Midlands Arts and the local authorities and it is now regarded as the regional company for the East Midlands.
Due to financial constraints CFO had to cancel its plans for a Spring production in 2003, but following an agreement with London City Opera to stage co-productions under the banner of East Midlands Opera Partnership, CFO returned to Derngate in February 2004 with a new production of Puccini’s masterpiece Tosca and the production then toured to a number of regional venues.
On 1 December 2004 the company changed its name to Northampton Festival Opera.
In 2005 NFO staged a high quality small scale production of A Night at the Opera (Scenes from Opera) with Arts Council Lottery funding which opened in June at the Northampton Music & Arts Festival and then toured to venues in the East Midlands region under the banner Taking Opera to the Community which can be staged in small venues not usually able to take full-scale productions. This programme was run in conjunction with a workshop programme An Insight into Opera.
In 2006 the company gave a number of concerts in the region during spring and summer and then undertook its autumn season of again Taking Opera to the Community. The production, Opera Scenes, again supported by the Arts Council,featured fully staged and costumed scenes from ten operas and opened on 29 September at the Northampton Guildhall. After this it toured to five other venues in the East Midlands region.
The Taking Opera to the Community project developed further in 2007 when NFO staged a full production with orchestra of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers in the Northampton Royal Theatre & Opera House which then toured round the region to the venues visited in 2005 and 2006 as well as some new venues.
In April 2008 the company participated in Venezia, the major exhibition in Northampton, by providing the entertainment at the preview reception and performing in the Grosvenor Centre and Fishmarket to promote the exhibition. During the summer it also provided a group of singers for the exhibition’s Music Soiree in the Abington Park Museum. In addition NFO also gave three concerts, two under the banner Opera U Love at Stoke Doyle and Brackley and a Gala Opera Concert in the Northampton Guildhall with Alison Roddy as guest soloist. The company also appeared at the Picturedrome in Northampton as part of Music Week.
In January 2009 NFO will be staging a production of Flotow’s opera Martha in a co-production with Opera South. The NFO performances will be on 15/16/17 January in Royal & Derngate, Northampton and on 31 January in the Palace Theatre, Newark.
