SUMMER APPEAL 2026
Help us reach our £10,000 Summer Appeal target
Every ticket you buy makes a difference. But ticket sales alone cannot sustain a festival like this. Your support makes the music possible.
Last year, ticket and event sales generated just 31.4% of our operational income. By contrast, 42.1% came directly from individual giving and Gift Aid, making our Patrons, Friends and supporters our single most important source of income. Without that generosity, the performances, artist development and community work you value simply could not happen.
A Festival Built by a Remarkable Community
Each summer more than 3,000 audience members, around 80 artists and production professionals, over 100 volunteers and around 150 Patrons and Friends come together to create something extraordinary. Your support nurtures emerging artists, inspires local children, brings music to older people and enables us to commission new work.
When the lights come up at Church Farm, audiences see the singers, musicians, costumes and scenery. Behind every performance, however, are months of preparation, rehearsals, coaching, technical planning and fundraising. Creating opera of this quality in a temporary theatre is an ambitious undertaking, and ticket sales alone cannot meet the true cost.
Your support reaches far beyond the performances on stage. It helps emerging singers develop within a professional repertory company, gives children across Wiltshire and Somerset the chance to sing, create and perform, brings uplifting live music to older and socially isolated adults, and enables us to commission and produce work for future generations.
Please consider making a donation today, and be part of a dedicated company that is keeping opera alive, dynamic, and truly open to all:
Impact
Everything we do at If Opera is about celebrating great music in extraordinary places. Since our inception in 1994, we have presented 100 opera productions; over 500 performances; 86 picnic proms and other concerts. We have welcomed over 45,000 audience members to opera performances and 17,000 for proms and concerts. We have nurtured over 140 emerging artists since our programme started in 2010. Since the same year, we have worked with 30 local schools and over 1,400 children, working with some of the most disadvantaged children in our local community.
“Critically acclaimed performances in intimate settings, high-level training for young artists, public workshops and learning and participation projects among local communities are all delivered by an effective, committed and dynamic team that deserves the opportunity to develop this fantastic cultural resource to its full capacity.”
Ash Khandekar, Editor-in-Chief of Opera Now magazine from 1997 to 2023
The Repertory Ensemble Model
The opera profession centres on the exacting skills of singers’ voices. The fact that their jobs require them to combine the emotional flexibility of an actor, with the mentality and fitness of an athlete is often ignored. Our repertory ensemble model is unique in the UK and places early career singers at its heart providing a richly supportive environment at the stage when careers are so precarious. Supporting singers at the outset of their careers and developing their extraordinary talent is central to our work at If Opera.
Once the hubbub of conservatoire life has passed, artists are at their prime to explore, develop and showcase their work. We are dedicated to supporting every singer that works with If Opera, be it the ‘nuts and bolts’ of coaching with our music staff, advice about the inner workings of the industry, introductions to agents, audition coaching or simply giving them a platform to shine centre stage.
The impact for any If Opera company member is intended to be long-term, providing a valuable stepping stone in the development of their careers and helping them make invaluable industry connections and to secure employment with other companies.
Each year we offer between five and eight weeks work to our ensemble company who work across all of the productions. Singers learn new repertoire and gain invaluable performance experience with structured coaching and mentoring support. Wellbeing is at the heart of our company and our collegiate approach fosters mutual respect, supports mental health and provides the conditions for artists to thrive and in turn inspire our audiences.
Artists range from recent Conservatoire graduates at the beginning of their careers to more experienced singers, later on in their development, seeking the next step.
If Opera Artistic Director, Oliver Gooch, explains why what we offer to young singers is so important:
“We are dedicated to supporting every singer that works with If Opera, and we strive to offer not only an enticing variety of roles to our ensemble, but also an environment where they can be themselves, say what they really think, and not fear the repercussions of being ill on first night or worry that there is no one to talk to when demands of the job get too much. Your support and dedication to supporting our repertory ensemble will not only help give them financial reassurance but also a sense of place and positive wellbeing to continue to grow and thrive as performing artists in years to come.”
Funds raised through the summer appeal will:
Support the professional development of If Opera’s outstanding artists, including one-to-one and small group coaching and mentoring for all company members.
Allow us to offer more opportunities to emerging artists to cover principal roles.
Offer emerging artists an audio-visual audition workshop - an opportunity to record an aria, review and discuss the results, and work on their presentation skills, resulting in useable high quality audio and audio-visual footage for auditions and self-promotion.
Schools Education Project 2026
Changing Lives Through Music
120 children. Four schools. One unforgettable creative journey.
Every summer, audiences gather to experience the extraordinary power of live opera. Yet, long before the first note is sung on our festival stage, that same power is already transforming lives in classrooms across Wiltshire and Somerset.
As a registered charity, we believe that every child deserves the opportunity to experience high-quality live music and discover the confidence, creativity and joy that comes from making it themselves. Our education programme is about far more than introducing children to opera. It is about giving every young person a voice, encouraging imagination, building self-belief, and creating experiences that many would otherwise never have the chance to enjoy.
Inspired by Carmen
This spring, our schools project took inspiration from Bizet's Carmen. Working with four schools, including a specialist SEND school, professional animateur and soprano Lynsey Docherty, West End composer Tim Gilvin, and baritone Tim Bagley guided more than one hundred children through an extraordinary creative journey. Together they explored storytelling, singing, movement, stagecraft and composition before creating and performing their own original mini-operetta inspired by Carmen.
Rather than simply learning songs, the children became creators. They invented lyrics, choreographed scenes, designed props, explored dramatic characters and discovered how music, words and movement combine to tell a story. Every idea mattered, every contribution was valued, and every child became part of the company.
The Impact
The diversity of the children taking part reflected the communities we serve, including children with English as an Additional Language, pupils eligible for Free School Meals, and children with additional educational needs, including Three Ways School where every pupil has an Education, Health and Care Plan.
Why It Matters
These stories remind us that the true value of arts education cannot always be measured in numbers alone. It can be found in the quiet child who volunteers an idea for the first time, in the pupil who discovers the confidence to stand centre stage, in the shared laughter of classmates creating something together, and in parents seeing abilities they had never witnessed before.
Opera has always been about telling human stories. Through our schools programme, children discover that those stories can become their own.
Funds raised through the summer appeal will:
Sustain and extend our Schools programme which takes performances and workshops to local schools including those for young people with disabilities and serving areas of socio-economic and rural deprivation.
Community Work
Older, isolated adults
Collaborating with Bluebird Care and the Wiltshire Music Centre on our Afternoon Tea and Opera events for older isolated adults in the community, is one of the highlights of our year.
Led by the wonderful Lynsey Docherty, soprano and animateur, our afternoon concerts have delighted attendees with uplifting performances and shared experiences, leaving guests feeling enriched and connected. Audiences are treated to afternoon tea and cake, while the If Opera ensemble, past and present, perform a selection of popular operatic arias as well as a selection of beloved show tunes.
These community-centred events show how thoughtfully designed musical interaction can spark joy, reduce loneliness, and strengthen wellbeing among older adults. Group music not only supports mind and mood but fosters social connection - combating the “epidemic” of loneliness.
“It was so much fun to be part of and really heartwarming to see so many smiling faces. Some of our dementia patients are almost non-verbal, and it was incredible to see them singing along.”
Funds raised through the summer appeal will:
Help develop our initiative taking If Opera artists into the community to enrich the lives of socially isolated older people.
If Opera is a not-for profit registered charity.
Each year, If Opera enjoys the fruits of a giant collaboration between its small executive team, over 100 volunteers and around 3,000 audience members, together with financial support from Patrons and Members. This combined enterprise enables us to engage around 80 people each year compromising of singers, directors, conductors, musicians, designers, technical staff, stage managers, and crew, mostly at an early stage in their careers.
What your gift could make possible…
Every Note Matters
£75 ~ Helps provide music and materials for a child in our school’s programme
£240 ~ Helps cover coaching and accompaniment for an emerging artist
£1,000 ~ Helps fund a day's rehearsal for our professional company
£2,500 ~ Helps bring a new production to life through music, staging and technical rehearsals
Whether you choose to support artist development, schools and community work, or allow us to direct your gift wherever it is most needed, every donation will be put to careful and practical use.
If your company or trust is looking for meaningful ways to support the arts, we’d love to talk about partnership opportunities.
Please reach out to us at info@ifopera.com.
If you have any questions, please get in touch with Debbie Heyden by email or call 01225 868124