Sunday 8 July (Matinee), Wednesday 11 July, Saturday 14 July, Thursday 19 July (Matinee), Saturday 21 July

Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante. Libretto adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712.

Performed in Italian, with English side-titles

A Buxton International Festival production with the Buxton Festival Chorus and Northern Chamber Orchestra

Mozart’s Idomeneo, King of Crete was the 25-year-old Mozart’s thirteenth opera and marks his maturity as a dramatic composer, marking the culmination of opera seria as an operatic form. In the aftermath of the Trojan War, King Idomeneo seeks to avoid a terrible destiny for his son, Idamante, by ordering the sacrifice of Ilia, a refugee princess and the daughter of his enemy, not realising she and his son are in love. In a plot that plunges the characters (and the audience) into extreme emotional states, Idomeneo features some of Mozart’s most varied and inventive music.

Buxton Opera House

8-21 July 2018