Lizzie Murphy
A CATTLE market is not a place you would normally associate with Mozart but this weekend Skipton Auction Mart will be transformed into the setting for the composer's Cosi Fan Tutte.
Singers from Skipton Building Society Camerata are staging the opera tonight and tomorrow to bring Mozart to the masses.
Written in 1789, Cosi Fan Tutte is Mozart's last opera in Italian and tells the tale of two women and their love affairs with two Italian army officers. Although the music remains as Mozart intended, in this version the story and setting have been tweaked to match the rural surroundings and will take place in a 1940s farming community between English land girls and American soldiers.
Ben Crick, from Skipton, who adapted the opera and will conduct the orchestra, said: "I feel if more people had access to opera then more people would love it. I think the problem is that tickets are extortionate and there is an opera culture that a lot of people don't feel part of. We are stripping all that away to leave only the art form so more people coming to opera can see it as an accessible and vibrant art form."
Mr Crick said the response to their unusual production from the town had been positive. "A lot of the local community and towns are behind us and a few people have come to watch us rehearsing", he said.
"Some farmers have come in and taken the mick, and others have said it's the most bizarre thing they have seen, but generally everyone has been very supportive."
The Rendezvous Hotel in Skipton supported the singers by offering them free rooms for the week, while they were rehearsing
This is the company's first full-length opera and features a cast of six professional soloists from the Royal College of Music and the Ohio State Conservatoire, supported by a Skipton Camerata chorus.
Edmund Connolly, who plays Guglielmo, one of the two soldiers in the opera, said: "The cattle market is a departure from where I usually perform, but it is a surprisingly good venue because of the way it is shaped so everyone in the audience has a good view. Acoustically it is also good."
Performing at the auction mart instead of a theatre has its challenges, including the lack of dressing rooms, which have to be improvised in any space available. There is no orchestra pit so the 30 musicians and conductor will sit behind the singers, who will then watch them on a monitor.
Mr Connolly added: "These are practical challenges but they can be overcome and it is worth it for a project like this."
This is the latest unusual performance by the opera company, which last year staged Mozart's little-known Bastien and Bastienna at the Narrow Boat pub in Skipton. For his next venture, Mr Crick said he would like to stage Puccini's Tosca at Skipton Castle.
Tickets, which have almost sold out, are £10/£8 concessions, available from the auction mart box office on 01756 791411.
lizzie.murphy@ypn.co.uk