theartsdesk in Clonter: The Opera Farm

Deep in rural Cheshire farmland, music is in the air. It’s not the music of the spheres from the Jodrell Bank radio telescope nearby, nor even the sound of the birds and the bleating of the lambs nearby. It is the music of human voices at work on scales and operatic arias. The 250-acre farm is Clonter, where for years people used to come to be entertained in the barn while picnicking amid bales of straw. Now the barn’s converted into an opera theatre - "the Glyndebourne of the North".

The venue wasn’t easy to find in those early days among Cheshire’s winding lanes, high hedges and farm tracks, where the verges are now layered with bluebells, overhung by apple blossom and laburnum, and the rhododendron is already spent. Nowadays, 37 years later, opera-goers enjoy the luxury of signposts as they hunt down the summer opera festival with a reputation for spotting future stars. Someone has described it as the place “where Glyndebourne meets point to point”. Its elegant pheasant weathervane (pictured below) has become its logo.

Jeffery Lockett first invited a group of opera singers to his farm for a charity night in 1974. Since then he has established Clonter as an invaluable link between the best of the music colleges and the profession. Auditions are held at music schools such as the Royal Northern College of Music, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, whose head of opera, Clive Timms, is Clonter’s director of music. Many now-familiar performers in the opera houses gratefully got their first break at Clonter Opera – the likes of Simon Keenlyside (now president), Mary Plazas, Alfie Boe, Jonathan Lemalu, Camilla Tilling and Katarina Karneus. And as to underpin the “Glyndebourne of the North” tag, Sir George Christie is patron.

And this season will be special for Lockett. It’s 30 years since he replaced the barn with a proper opera theatre. Building on the festival’s reputation as the springboard for emerging talent, this year's season launched this week with a new venture – a series of masterclasses under the direction of the conductor Wyn Davies and international director Michael McCaffery, the man responsible for Clonter’s last two productions, Rigoletto and La Cenerentola (pictured left). Hence those scales and arias in the air.

“This is a key place to hear young singers,” says Wyn Davies, “and Jeffery has a knack of being able to pick them. It has the advantage of being in the middle of nowhere, so you can do quality work which is really concentrated. After all, there’s nowhere to go. It has a great atmosphere and can give a singer their only chance to do a full opera at this stage.”

Clonter is a true nursery for its operatic chicks - it provides accommodation for its protégés so that they can concentrate on singing on the spot. The five singers chosen for the masterclasses came from the RNCM, the RCM and the Sydney Conservatorium. We should make a note of their names: tenor Adam Smith, who will be singing the role of Arturo in Clonter’s headline production of Lucia di Lammermoor in July, Australian soprano Catherine Bouchier, coloratura soprano Joohyun Lee, mezzo Flora McIntosh and Andrew Fellowes, a bass baritone.

Lockett himself was a young singer - his mother was the mezzo Betty Bannerman. Back in 1974 he had the idea of inviting the London-based Abbey Opera Group, run by his singing teacher Mary Hill, to his farm to present an evening of operatic excerpts, with an extended interval for picnics, to paying customers, the proceeds going to Cancer Relief. “I got the idea of making a stage of straw bales from the cattle auctions,” he says.

The idea took off – and continued until the local authority stepped in, with the edict that the farm should come into line with the 1968 Theatres Act and be redesignated an opera theatre. In 1981, that is what it became – the straw bales disappeared, the barn was done up to accommodate diners under the sloping beams, an extended dining area was built and, more importantly, a 400-seat theatre.

Not as simply and easily as that, of course. It took 10 years to create the venue as it is today, the only such theatre between Oxford and Glasgow. It is also firmly on the calendar of the social life of Cheshire and beyond. Although it has inevitably become much more informal, most people who come still like to dress for dinner and book in for fine dining or bring picnics that defy that modest description. The “Cheshire set”, whatever that is, meets here – and a lot of champagne and good food can certainly enhance the buzz around a performance, especially after a 70-minute supper interval.

While the focus is often around the young singers, the productions themselves have grown in stature and achievement - they’ve won awards in competition with Opera North, English Touring Opera and the Buxton Festival. And Clonter’s success is due to Lockett’s persistence, persuasion and genial charm, although he can be irascible and is a stickler for standards.

The focus now is on this year’s opera production, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, conducted by Timms and directed by Ashley Dean, a young director whose past productions include Carmen (Scottish Opera) and Night Pieces for Glyndebourne. As is now the tradition, the production will go into the RCM’s Britten Theatre in September.

These days, Clonter also offers a coveted annual singing prize of £2,000 for student singers, awarded last February, which is unique as the only inter-conservatoire opera prize awarded in the UK. There is a residential, touring and educational programme, and more than 1,500 children every year participate in the educational activities, which include musical-theatre days, performance projects, public performances and free admission to rehearsals. The full season is not restricted to opera either. They have developed a popular programme of jazz, folk and art history.

Naturally, a constant headache for Jeffery Lockett, apart from the artistic standards, is money to run the show, meeting the annual £350,000 revenue. “It is increasingly challenging these days,” he says. “But challenging does not mean impossible and can often bring about creative solutions. One of the biggest growth areas for non-profit organisations has been online fundraising. I hope this will help to supplement all the generous donations we get from trusts, sponsors and individual donors.”

He and his wife Anita have worked together to make Clonter into a family enterprise. “Our hope is that ACE will be able to recognise our work in their national portfolio plans during the next three critical years,” he says. “We have been given some encouragement subsequent to their recent decision to exclude us. In this climate, after 37 years of music-making in our converted farm building, we are reflecting on our good fortune in the past and our desire for survival in the next decade. Our three children and the grandchildren are increasingly involved with our artistic activities and educational outreach programme. One thing’s for sure – we’ll never pack up.”

Happily, the early days are not forgotten – the organisation is run under the Clonter Farm Musical Trust. It’s just that these days Jeffery Lockett farms the music colleges. Farming and nurturing, planting and helping to grow, strengthening and blossoming are still at the heart of his endeavour.

• Lucia di Lammermoor is at Clonter Opera, Swettenham Heath, Congleton on 23, 26, 28 & 30 July & 24 September, then the Royal College of Music, London SW7 28 & 29 September