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Published: 28 October, 2010
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR

THE lively, likeable Hampstead Garden Opera is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a new production of Mozart’s Magic Flute.

There will be 10 per­formances Upstairs at the Gatehouse, in Highgate, including three matinees.

Two strong casts have been assembled, inclu­ding soloists from prev­ious HGO productions.

Sharing the role of Pamina will be Hannah Sawle, an HGO soloist in Mozart’s Idomeneo and Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore, and young Highbury singer Raphaela Papadakis, making her debut with the com­pany. Co-in­cid­en­tally, both are studying with John Evans at Guildhall School of Music.

The new Magic Flute will be the HGO’s 40th production put together since Dr Roy Budden started an opera evening class at the Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute, concen­trating initially on Mozart.

“Soon added were Bizet, Gounod, Offen­bach, Puccini, Johann Strauss and Verdi and, more recently, Donizetti, Handel, John Blow and Henry Purcell,” says Alastair Macgeorge, one HGO’s founders and mainstays through the years. “We moved to Upstairs at the Gate­house nine years ago, where we’ve continued with aims of being the best chamber-opera of its kind in London, dedicated to giving talented young singers the chance to work with loyal amateurs.

“We’ve deliberately chosen to be part of the regular programme at a small, local community theatre so that we can put on opera at affordable prices, particularly for those who may have never set foot in the big opera houses.

“We’ve done 25 different operas, counting double and triple bills as one. Or 29 by 17 composers if you count each work separately. By the time we’ve finished Flute, will have done 223 performances in all, 138 of them in Upstairs at the Gatehouse, involving nearly 500 singers over the past 20 years.” 

• The Magic Flute, Upstairs at the Gate­house, 7.30pm, Nov­ember 4 & 5: £18/ cons £16. Further per­formances to Novem­ber 14: £20/cons £18, under-­18s: £12, 020 8340 3488, www.hgo.org.uk