Carnival in Buxton: processions, brass bands and well-dressings — and, inside Frank Matcham’s exquisite little Opera House, a glitzy masked ball in Venice. And there’s no carnival queen like Lucrezia Borgia. The Buxton Festival began, in 1979, with Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and it has been loyal to the composer throughout its 30 years. Lucrezia Borgia was a brave choice to start this year’s festival. But courage dangerously resembled hubris when the leading lady fell ill, with no understudy.

Mary Plazas, felled by a severe infection, tiptoed her way through her entrance aria which, thank goodness, required little more of her than to contemplate the sleeping Gennaro. This Gennaro, infatuated with Lucrezia, and robustly sung by John Bellemer, turns out to be her son. Her efforts to save him from the rounds of violence and poisoning, which shape the score, purify her soul. And indeed, in her final virtuoso aria, Plazas’s throat and sinuses cleared, to yield a truly magnificent tour de force of Donizettian bel canto.

If Plazas turned out to be a true heroine (and this bodes well for subsequent performances), then she is also strongly supported by Andrew Greenwood in the pit and a feisty cast, including David Soar’s dark-hued Alfonso and Miroslava Yordanova’s trouser-role Orsini. If in any doubt as to how to woo an audience into the darker side-alleys of Italian opera, then bring on the Mafia. Stephen Medcalf’s production updates the drama to a piazza with a neon-signed café Borgia. Shoot off the letter B — and see what remains. Fun and passion for all.

The following evening, Messager’s operetta Véronique was given a fresh and fragrant airing, conducted with considerable legerdemain by Wyn Davies, and in a visually delectable production by Giles Havergal. Suspended picture frames are lit, in each act, by changing tableaux of fin-de-siècle Paris and its bucolic outskirts. Victoria Joyce and Mark Stone’ s Véronique and Florestan sing well, if somewhat charmlessly. It’s always difficult for English voices, and feet, to recreate the elegance, comic sophistication and lightness of touch of Messager’s music: Tim Claydon’s choreography needs some tightening up, too.

But Donald Maxwell as Coquenard, Yvonne Howard as Estelle, and Owen Webb and Jennifer Walker as a Welsh Seraphin and Denise, all work hard to make the most of Kit Hesketh-Harvey’s neat and witty new translation.

Performances, in repertory, until July 28. Box office: 0845 1272190

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