Buxton International Festival 2021 is to go ahead in full after the 2020 festival was cancelled for the first time in 40 years and had to move online because of COVID-19.
The 2021 programme will include the première of Malcolm Arnold's The Dancing Master, a co-production with conductor John Andrews who was nominated for BBC Music Magazine's 2021 opera recording of the year. It will be staged at Buxton Opera House on Friday 9, Tuesday 13, Friday 16 and Thursday 22 July.
Another highlight will be a BIF co-production with the Early Opera Company of Handel's Acis and Galatea, conducted by Christian Curnyn. It will be performed in the Opera House on Monday 12, Sunday 18 and Tuesday 20 July.
There will be a new BIF production of Pauline Viardot's Cendrillon in the Pavilion Arts Centre on Monday 12, Friday 16 and Saturday 24 July and
Jonathan Dove's The Enchanted Pig will be staged in the same venue on Saturday 10 and Saturday 17 July.
The festival will offer a musical for the first time, a co-production with Buxton Opera House of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music featuring Janie Dee, directed by Paul Kerryson and conducted by Wyn Davies.
The festival's books programme which “does not shy away from controversial subjects” will include events on land reform, the leadership style of British Prime Ministers, slave trade reparations and the future of Brexit Britain.
Guests include broadcasters Andrew Marr, Iain Dale, Giles Fraser and Matthew Parris, authors James Rebanks, Ben MacIntyre and Max Hastings, historians Margaret MacMillan and Neil Oliver, journalists Polly Toynbee and David Walker, scientists palaeontologist Richard Fortey and archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes, law makers including policewoman Parm Sandhu and chief prosecutor, Nazir Afzal, and bookseller Martin Latham.
The festival takes place between Thursday 8 and Sunday 25 July.