Mignon, Buxton Festival, Derbys, UK

The news of George Harewood’s death a few hours before curtain-up could have cast a shadow over this performance of Ambroise Thomas’s neglected opéra comique, and the fact that, after an appropriate moment’s silence, it went ahead with such verve is exactly what he would have wanted. In his day Lord Harewood was an inspiring chairman of the Buxton Festival, spiritus rector of English National Opera and the moving force behind the creation of Opera North. He probably did more for opera in England over the past half-century than anyone.

Mignon, a sentimentalised version of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister novels, tells of a much-abused orphan who is rescued by the man of her dreams and reunited with her errant father. Written for the same singer as Bizet’s Carmen (but nine years earlier), it is one of those delicate charmers that, a century ago, was core repertoire. Today it is true festival fare, but it needs an intimate theatre like Buxton’s. This English-language production, using the creaky sung recitatives the composer wrote for the first London performances rather than the spoken dialogues of the Paris original, made no attempt to sex up the action. Instead of being embarrassed by Mignon’s period conventions, the up-and-coming director Annilese Miskimmon made a virtue of them, preserving the innocence of the story and sprinkling it with fairy-dust.

Nicky Shaw’s cutaway sets, lit by John Bishop, created maximum atmosphere with minimal resources. We smelt the train station at the end of Act One just as we felt the fire at the close of Act Two, which was dominated by a fabulous trompe l’oeil lakeside reflection. In the title role, to which her gamine looks were perfectly suited, Wendy Dawn Thompson gave the performance of her life: she sang “Connais-tu le pays” touchingly and really tugged the heart-strings at the end. Ryan MacPherson’s handsome Wilhelm had ringing top notes, while Gillian Keith profiled the man-eating Philine as Zerbinetta’s alter ego.

Andrew Greenwood shaped the score exquisitely. This is his last year as Buxton’s artistic director: he couldn’t go out in greater style.

Buxton Festival