 In addition to plays at the Buxton Opera House, the festival ran a summer school at the adjoining Playhouse Theatre.The Festival as it exists today came about because of the inspiration in the 1970s to encourage the restoration of the Buxton Opera House, a classic Frank Matcham building.Much respected conductor Anthony Hose (then Head of Music at Welsh National Opera) and Malcolm Fraser (then lecturing in opera at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester) saw its potential as a venue for an opera festival.