Combining Handel, Milton and access for all at Vache Baroque

We’re very lucky at Vache Baroque (VB) to be so closely linked to poet John Milton and, by extension, to the wonderful team at Milton’s Cottage, which was built in the late 16th century for the estate manager of the local Vache estate and later became the home in which Milton finished his epic poem Paradise Lost. Our first collaboration was in 2021 with an event called ‘Paradise and Pandemonium’, mixing Bach cantatas into an edited version of Milton’s two Paradise Lost/Regained poems, lead with sly brilliance from actor Simon Callow as Satan. This being as epic as it sounds, we wanted our ‘Visionaries’ project - celebrating Milton’s L’Allegro and Il Penseroso poems and Handel’s setting of them - to be something very different, inviting people to investigate an inner, personal world of experience.

It was important to us from the outset that we connected with those people who do experience the world differently to most. With John Milton writing much of his finest work after losing his vision, Milton’s Cottage had already built-up strong relationships with local groups like GuideDogs and BucksVision. Once we’d agreed to collaborate, Buckinghamshire Council’s Culture Team connected us with the specialist Sensory and Physical Training department of their Integrated SEND Service, and in particular Hannah Redwood who works with deaf-blind learners across the county. It was an inspiring initial conversation and we’ve had a fun (and very emotional) time creating a massage-story adaptation of Handel’s ‘drama’ for these young people. We’re greatly looking forward to launching the project with a performance of this version and accompanying workshop at the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre before moving to The Vache for public performances.

For these, our first decision was to present them inside the central galleried hall of The Vache, something we’ve never done before. Not wanting to give too much away, this will mean that our small audiences (30 at a time over six 45-minute shows) will hear Handel’s music in surround sound, with no movement being delivered in the same way. Those present who are sighted will also enter the space blindfolded, an idea that came from experiences some of our creative team had had of ‘dining in the dark’. We knew experts would be needed to lead such a particular – and intense – experience and so approached BitterSuite, a fantastic company who create ‘bold, inclusive, and radical reimagining[s] of music’. From the outset, we agreed this wasn’t going to be approached as a simulation of blindness but as a way to explore this piece of music using all the senses (with the blindfolds being taken off at a certain point). Milton’s text is packed full of 3D imagery and, helped of course by Handel, provides a perfect vehicle for us to journey inwards into the human condition.

Our creative and advisory team has a number of blind and partially sighted people, as well as professionals working in this area. One of our soprano soloists, Victoria Oruwari, is registered blind, and alto Sarah Denbee is visually impaired. Kevin Carey, who is a former chair of the Royal National Institute for the Blind, and his wife Margaret have given of their time so generously, discussing their lived experience with us, filming explanatory content for our audiences, and even donating a sculpture series for a pre-performance touch experience. Marilyn Fisher, a Buckinghamshire local from GuideDogs, gave sighted-guide training to VB co-founder Betty Makharinsky (pictured above) who will be managing the space over the performance weekend. The input of these exceptional people along with those from the Bucks Council MSI team has been invaluable, given that the main members of Vache Baroque, Milton’s Cottage, and BitterSuite are all sighted. With good grace, and no doubt a lot of patience, they have made us all feel gradually more confident in how we think about blindness, visual impairment, deafness, and living with disability.

Further to this, as Buckinghamshire (Stoke Mandeville) is the proud birthplace of the Paralympic Games, we are paying homage to the event this summer with the return of our flagship opera – Pergolesi’s L’Olimpiade. We will fill the grounds with sporting activities and demos before the main fully staged shows, display materials kindly donated to us from the Paralympic Heritage Trust, and will have a shorter, relaxed performance in the middle of the run. It’s very important to us that the people we connect with can keep on experiencing live music and it’s our job to provide it in ways that are both accessible and impactful. 

It has already been an incredible journey for all involved in ‘Visionaries’ but the connections we really hope to enable are just around the corner, and we couldn’t be more excited. The verdant grounds and surrounding woodland of The Vache will be open all day for a refreshing dose of fresh air and birdsong. Inside there will be birdsong too, just of a more Handelian variety…