Bampton Classical Opera - Salieri's At the Venice Fair (La fiera di Venezia)

For its 30th anniversary season Bampton Classical Opera is delighted to present the UK première of a rumbustious comedy set in Venice by Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), La fiera di Venezia. It will be sung in a new English translation by Gilly French as ‘At the Venice Fair’. Performances will be conducted by Thomas Blunt and directed by Jeremy Gray.

First performed in the illustrious Burgtheater in Vienna in 1772, La fiera di Venezia was Salieri’s sixth opera and his first truly popular success, rapidly reaching across northern Europe with new performances. Many aspects of it were experimental, aimed at creating engaging and often unpredictable comedy. A Venetian street market, a rigged raffle, a masked ball and ultimately a triple wedding make it a wonderfully festive piece, with a range of characters from different social classes, and a marvellous sequence of scintillating arias and energetic ensembles. Several aspects of it anticipate Mozart’s great operas, and it’s no surprise that the 16-year-old Mozart wrote a set of miniature variations for piano on the beguiling Minuet from the ball scene. Bampton has previously performed three great Salieri operas, revealing the genius of this somewhat maligned composer, and La fiera di Venezia will again demonstrate how skilled the composer was at creating melodious and exciting comic opera.