Get your flags out for the classics (From Echo)

Get your flags out for the classics

8:40am Friday 15th June 2012 in Sound Check By Tom King

THE jubilee holiday may be over, but the jubilee celebrations continue, as a group of tip-top singers celebrate all things British.

This concert won’t be on the Thames, but by another river, the Crouch, as Opera Novella returns for a third year to the Battlesbridge Rural Theatre.

The programme mixes many of the best loved highlights of the operatic repertoire with favourite patriotic songs such as Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory.

Theatre owner Roy Hart says: “It gives a good excuse to wave all those flags we bought for the jubilee once again.”

The theatre itself, decked out in bunting, will once again add to the sense of occasion.

During the winter, the barn is a working farm building, used for the storage of straw, hay and machinery. But it is also a fully equipped theatre, installed with a stage, lighting gantry, and a balcony to increase seating capacity. A restored gipsy caravan stationed just outside the entrance acts as the bar.

Roy says: “The idea of staging a charity opera event in a hay-barn was thought a bit way-out when we did it for the first time last year, but on previous occasions it proved to be a near sell-out.

“Even people who don’t think of themselves as natural opera buffs just loved it. It’s fair to say Opera Novella are returning by public demand.”

The audience are invited to picnic on the banks of the River Crouch prior to the performance and to wear smart or colourful clothes.

All profits from A Night at the Opera will go to charity, divided between Marie Curie Cancer Care, the RNLI, and Battlesbridge village hall.

Opera and Proms by the Lake Battlesbridge Theatre, Battlesbridge Mill (entrance south side of bridge) Saturday, June 16. Doors open 6.30pm for 7.30pm. £22 01268 768282

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