When three years ago, Mannheim  opera produced a real mash-up of Gretry’s slight tale of Beauty and the Beast with Disney dwarfs, a Sugar Puff monster and a footballer hero, I thought I would never see a production to do the piece justice. Opera

Bampton Opera and director Jeremy Gray have put that right, with a charming show elevated by two outstanding performers in the title roles, Ffion Edwards as Zemira and Gwilym Bowen as Azor, the prince turned monster.

Zemira’s merchant father Sandro (Samuel Pantcheff) with his servant Ali (Andrew Irwin) is marooned in the Gulf of Hormuz (yes that one), held captive by Azor, but allowed to return home to his three daughters Zemira, Fatima (Sian Dicker) and Lesbia (Rachel Roper) if one of them returns as his hostage.

The music, much of it later additions for the original Italian language performance in 1776, also in Mannheim, has a Mozartian feel, albeit without the sophistication that the greater composer’s symphonic experience brought to the orchestration.

Highlights include a highly interactive quartet for Sandro’s family and an off-stage obbligato for horn and flute that complements the final scene, but best of all are the showpiece arias for the principals. Bowen raises the show to a nerve-tingling level with his first entrance, "Beware my furious rage", menace combined with smooth, long legato lines, and a trilling Edwards handles the virtuoso songbird air with great delicacy and poise.

It is not a story of great depth—its appeal at the time largely a result of its magical effects—yet by their mutual reticence, in the scene where suspicion turns gradually to love, the couple achieve a real sense of pathos.

Irwin plays up Ali’s timidity—a model perhaps for Mozart’s Papageno, Pantcheff projects boldly the figure of the merchant, Dicker invests considerable feeling into her act two lament, and Roper sounds ravishing in one of many additions to the score in 1776 from the works of Niccolo Jommelli, the only shortcoming of which is its brevity.

The stage is split in two with Azor’s Persian palace on one side and Sandro’s simple home on the other, and video screens effectively portray the magical connection between the two. Placing the orchestra between them gives it rather undue prominence, but conductor Andrew Griffiths was keenly responsive to the singers and only once did the sound slightly lap over the soloist.

Tribute is due also to Pauline Smith and Anne Baldwin for their character-enhancing costume designs, Ali in cowardly yellow, Zemira resembling Little Red Riding Hood setting out to meet the wolf and Azor best of all, somewhere between cruel and cuddly, like a tabby cat with great claws and ram’s horns. Spot on.

Bampton Classical Opera’s rarely heard Zemira e Azor proved an absolute delight at Cokethorpe School, combining glorious music, playful staging and a beautifully accessible take on the Beauty and the Beast story.

This was a rare opportunity to hear a work that once travelled widely across Europe but is now seldom staged in Britain. Bampton Classical Opera presented a version based on the 1776 Italian edition, with additional music by Ignaz Holzbauer and Niccolò Jommelli, sung in a new English translation by Gilly French.

That scholarly detail might make the evening sound specialist. In practice, it was anything but remote. The production was warm, funny, generous and unexpectedly immediate, proving once again how skilfully Bampton can make rarely performed 18th-century opera feel alive for modern audiences.

The opening performances took place at Cokethorpe School, near Witney, a new venue for Bampton Classical Opera.  The setting worked beautifully. The production unfolded across two stages, while also making use of the balcony and, at times, the audience seating area. That gave the evening a sense of movement and intimacy, with the story seeming to grow out of the room rather than being kept at a polite distance.  There was also something special about being so close to the orchestra. Watching Andrew Griffiths shape Grétry’s score was a pleasure in itself, and the Orchestra of Bampton Classical Opera played with elegance, brightness and affection throughout.  For a semi-staged production, it felt remarkably vivid. The performance had theatrical imagination without losing sight of the music.

Zemira offers herself in place of her father as a prisoner in the magical castle of Azor, a prince transformed into a terrifying beast by a fairy’s curse. At first she is horrified by his appearance, but gradually sees the dignity, tenderness and nobility beneath the surface. When she finally declares her love, the spell is broken.

Director Jeremy Gray gave the piece a playful modern edge. Bright yellow cagoules, matching rubber gloves and even a copy of Just Seventeen magazine brought flashes of contemporary humour into the fairytale world.

Those choices could have jarred with the period score, but instead they gave the production a mischievous lightness. The comedy never mocked the music. It opened a door for the audience, making the opera feel approachable without flattening its emotional shape.

The cast was excellent throughout, mixing returning Bampton performers with company debuts. Ffion Edwards brought sincerity, warmth and vocal clarity to Zemira. Her performance made the character’s compassion feel active rather than passive, giving the heroine a quiet strength as she moved from fear to understanding.  Gwilym Bowen was both imposing and sympathetic as Azor. He captured the loneliness and strangeness of the cursed prince, while allowing enough tenderness through the disguise for Zemira’s change of heart to feel believable.  Their scenes together were among the evening’s strongest, giving the opera its emotional centre.

Rachel Roper was delightful as Lesbia, while Siân Dicker repeatedly stole scenes with a wonderfully dry and expressive Fatima  Andrew Irwin brought infectious comic energy to Ali, making every entrance count, while Samuel Pantcheff completed the principal cast with authority as Sandro.

The ensemble balance was one of the production’s pleasures. Nobody overplayed the comedy, but everyone understood its rhythm. The result was light, lively and precise, with enough theatrical sparkle to keep the audience smiling without losing the opera’s fairytale tenderness.

Bampton Classical Opera has built its reputation on rescuing rarely heard works from the late 18th century and presenting them in clear, lively English translations.  Zemira e Azor is exactly the kind of piece that justifies that mission. It is not merely a curiosity. It is melodically charming, theatrically generous and full of feeling.

The production also showed how a company can bring scholarship and entertainment together. The rarity of the edition mattered, but so did the laughter, the performances, the costumes, the staging and the sheer pleasure of hearing a score that deserves more attention.  At Cokethorpe, the result was a magical evening, and a strong argument for why these rediscoveries matter.  It took a rarely staged opera and made it feel fresh, accessible and full of theatrical life. The English text allowed the story to land clearly, and the cast gave the fairytale both humour and heart.

For anyone who thinks 18th-century opera might feel distant, this production is a persuasive answer. It was warm, playful and quietly magical.

If you only know Beauty and the Beast from the 1991 Disney version, you may not realise that the original story dates from the mid-18th century, and has been retold multiple times. It’s the basis of this opera by André Grétry, which was massively popular following its premiere in 1771.

Dancing teapots aren’t in evidence in Bampton Classical Opera’s production, directed by Jeremy Gray, but there’s much wit and energy here, as well as a sincere commitment to the charming score.

The company has been championing lesser-known or forgotten (sometimes with good reason) operas for more than 30 years at the Deanery Garden in Bampton. This year, they’ve shifted to Cokethorpe School, near Witney. The change from the outdoors picnic atmosphere of Bampton to an indoors school setting is all to the benefit of performers and audience. Sight lines and sound are vastly improved, and the risk of a mid-performance downpour is gone.

The Cokethorpe motto ‘Inopiam Ingenio Pensant’ (‘Ingenuity overcomes scarcity’) is emblazoned on a balcony in the hall. It seems an equally appropriate sentiment for a company that survives on shoestring budgets while bolstering the careers of young and upcoming singers. In Gray’s produciton, performers are periodically up on that balcony, but most of the action takes place on two small stages on the floor, with the first-rate orchestra (confidently conducted by Andrew Griffiths) positioned in between.

As Zemira (Beauty) and Azor (the Beast), Ffion Edwards and Gwilym Bowen are convincing in their growing mutual attraction, despite the obvious obstacle of Azor’s beastly behavior and his hirsute façade: a goat-like headdress and bear paws (costumes by Pauline Smith and Anne Baldwin).

Edwards essays the treacherous heights of coloratura role with aplomb. As Sandro, Zemira’s father, Samuel Pantcheff is touching in his mixture of guilt for having gotten into this mess and his desire to protect his three daughters. Rachel Roper and Siân Dicker have great fun as Zemira’s eye-rolling older sisters, Lesbia and Fatima, who join their sister in the famous trio.

There are issues with diction for some of the singers – unfortunate, given the new indoor venue and the use of an English translation by co-artistic director Gilly French. Andrew Irwin as Sandro’s servant, Ali, is vocally on point and embraces the comic nature of the character. He shines in an Act II duet with Zemira, as the two return to Azor’s castle.

Grétry’s opera took Europe by storm in the 1770s – Catherine the Great named her favourite greyhound Zemira. Audiences were entranced by its exotic setting – Persia, near the Gulf of Hormuz (a painfully resonant location in our time), and a stage effect that sees Zemira and Azor gaze at a ‘magic picture’ of Zemira’s family as they worry over the missing Zemira.

That magic is accomplished here by video screens, which presumably will be along for performances later in the year at Westonbirt Orangery in Gloucestershire and Smith Square Hall, London.

Gretry is a composer who has not reached the same heights of popularity of many of his contemporaries of the mid to late eighteenth century. It is thus fantastic that Oxfordshire is home to Bampton Classical Opera – a company dedicated to reviving lesser known works by musicians of this period.

Zemira e Azor is, essentially, a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. A father, Sandro, stumbles across an enchanted palace. This angers the owner, Azor, a hideous monster of a man, who threatens Sandro's life unless he is willing to send one of his daughters in his place. The father is horrified at such a prospect but accepts the bargain as a way of ensuring his escape. His youngest daughter, Zemira, discovers the details of the deal and runs off to the palace determined to save her father.

She meets Azor and an unexpected bond is formed and after the traditional obstacles are overcome, the curse turning Azor into a Beast is lifted and they all live happily ever after.

Musically, there is absolutely much to admire. It is a a lyrical and beautifully orchestrated opera-comique with many gorgeous moments shared between the singers and members of the chamber ensemble.

Andrew Griffiths conducts with the right balance of flair and precision necessary for music of this period. He shapes everything with care and allows both musicians and singers space to shine.

There is not a weak link in the cast. In the title roles, Ffion Edwards and Gwilym Bowen showcase their voices to perfection, handling the challenging demands of the score with apparent ease. Samuel Pantcheff (Sandro) has a rich, warm sound that is right for the part, which has one of the largest ranges of any baritone role in the repertoire.

Andrew Irwin uses his bright, characterful tenor to deliver much humour and personality to the role of the servant, Ali. And the cast is rounded out by the two other sisters. Lesbia (Rachel Roper) and Fatima (Sian Dicker) who blend their voices perfectly in what are, sadly, underwritten and underused roles.

This is music making of the highest order and whilst the material is not hugely memorable, it is a delight to hear performed so well.

For all the beauty and elegance of the score, it is a opera with many issues in terms of the plot and the drama. It is lacking in drama and tension with key moments, like the departure of Zemira, not even shown on stage only reported by other characters. It is not uncommon for operas to lacking dramaturgically speaking but, that said, the beauty of the music does mask some of these shortcomings.

The venue, Cokethorpe School, has many virtues – it is a lovely environment with more than adequate parking and plenty of space in which to enjoy a summer evening. The auditorium is not ideal for a theatrical presentation. Because it lacks a proper stage, the orchestra is on the same level as the singers and thus sight lines are badly compromised meaning that large parts of the action are obscured to significant sections of the audience. The staging is inventive with good use of technology to move things along. But the fact that the whole audience could not see all of the action is to be regretted.

All in all, there is absolutely much to enjoy. Bampton Classical Opera is a gem that should be cherished for doing what it does so well.

The performance last night was superlative. You showed such ingenuity in the use of the space at Cokethorpe. The two stages, the placement of the orchestra between and their performance of such unfamiliar music, the light projection on the ceiling, the use of ‘live streaming’, the costumes, the direction, the libretto, the casting and the voices were all magnificent… I was about to type ‘onward and upward’ but I wonder how in the world you can improve on such a magnificent performance.

a delightful piece with gorgeous music, excellent cast, direction and a very singable translation

Last night's performance was a magnificent success… most particularly in promoting enjoyment and understanding of the music, which was sung and played with real brilliance

Atmospheric music, perfectly attune to the story and scenes, particularly the thunder and lightning. Fantastic voices. Brilliant Azor costume. Creative split scene production and technical effects.