Revised seating as Buxton Festival goes ahead

Published: 16 June 2021
Reporter: Steve Orme

Extra performance: Cendrillon

The 2021 Buxton International Festival is to go ahead despite the government's announcement delaying the easing of lockdown, with more flexible seating and more single tickets in all its venues.

The festival is recognised as one of the UK's leading arts festivals and is a “summer celebration of the very best opera, music and books in the heart of the beautiful Peak District”.

Chief executive Michael Williams said, "we’re very proud that Buxton International Festival is going ahead. We’re revisiting our seating plans to ensure that we can accommodate as many people as we can, as safely as possible.

“We see our ourselves as trailblazers for post-lockdown festivals not only in the north west but right across the country, so we’re determined to get this right. If government guidelines allow, we’ll also be quick to open up the festival even wider towards the end of its run."

Some of the most popular events at the festival have extra performances including the opera Cendrillon which will have a fourth show on Friday 16 July. Pauline Viardot's Cendrillon is an “elegant retelling of the classic fairy tale Cinderella, though a little more light-hearted with a hapless father rather than an evil stepmother”.

The festival has confirmed that biologist and writer Richard Dawkins will speak live on Saturday 10 July at 4PM. His book Books Do Furnish a Life brings together his forewords, afterwords and introductions to the work of some of the leading thinkers of our age with a selection of his reviews to provide an “electrifying celebration of science writing, both fiction and non-fiction”.

The festival will run from 8 until 25 July.

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