HISTORY OF PRESTON OPERA

Preston Opera is 50 years old this year. The company was started in 1965 by Frank Salter when he gathered together a few fellow opera enthusiasts to prepare a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni. This performance took place in 1966 in the former Harris College. They were called Preston Opera Group, but over a few short years the size of the group grew and was renamed Preston Opera Company. Early performances took place in the Playhouse with a piano accompaniment, but such was their ambition that in 1975 the company put on its first production - Verdi's Nabucco -  in the new Charter Theatre, complete with orchestra. During the 1970s and 1980s the company continued to grow, with as many as 70 chorus members, putting on two fully staged productions of grand opera each year, usually in the Charter Theatre, including such well known operas as  Carmen, La Traviata, Aida, The Magic Flute, The Merry Widow, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci. The second production of Nabucco took place in the Guild year of 1992, when the piece was performed in the Grand Hall to a packed house. A third production took place in the Charter Theatre in 2003. Our most recent productions were Nabucco (2015), Magic Flute (2016) and Merry Widow (2017). 

As the company moved forward it changed its name again to Preston Opera and has continued to thrive, despite many other amateur groups struggling to make ends meet; it has around 100 active members, including singers, backstage and support teams. Preston Opera is now the only amateur company reguarly mounting fully staged productions of grand opera with full orchestral accompaniment in the north-west, and one of very few in the country. The company is proud to make this contribution to Preston's cultural life, and the city should be proud to be the home of such a company.