Just for fun, but if you had a massive lottery win and decided to set up your own opera company or choir what would you choose and why?
I would recreate a theatre of Handel's time with copies of the props and special effects of the time and use an orchestra trpical of his time too but without the headlice and TB and other assorted ills. We would have luxurious behind the scenes accomodation for all and our own jet for trips overseas too,

What would you do?

Build an opera house in Bristol. It's badly needed. Unfortunately Wessex Opera folded (they didn't have their own Opera House though), and there is no opera company in the South West.

I'd build a 'community theatre' in my area, that would house local theatre groups and choirs and youth musical theatre/music groups, giving a reasonable size and affordable performance space for local groups. At the moment the cost of hiring venues is prohibitive and there's nowhere to be 'resident' at, so we don't see performances of small works (as there's too much store set on big cast to sell tickets)

I'd then set up a local Youth Choir. We never had one when I was younger and it makes me so cross that the local music service thinks singing is 'just an extra for instrumentalists' (which is what their 'vocal ensemble' was described as in their bulletin, grrr).

Community theatre projects are great. I tried to interest one local group into doing one this year but was told that the school and church were both organising things and that it wasn't needed. It was to celebrate a rather inportant date in the local histi=ory of one of our Anglesey villages which would have brought in visitors from all over the globe. Ah well.......

I would just love to MD a company where the tenors and basses could actually sing the tenor and bass lines as opposed to the tune...

I have one like that already!!! There are no altos; well there are of course but they all like to call themselves sopranos, and some of them insist on growling an octave below the others. There aren't really enough men to divide into tenors and basses so we have Ladies 1, Ladies 2 and Men. Last weel I told the growlers to try to sing in the correct octave and that if they felt that they couldn't I would show them how to do so with the aid of a hat pin.
The line from Strawberry Fair that runs "My face is my fortune Sir, she said" just didn't work at all for me when sung in the baritone register.

They do try hard though to be fair.

I'd love a choir where the sopranos don't fall to bits when asked to sing something other than the tune!

Swap you some sopranos and 2nd sopranos for some tenors and basses?

But our predicament is not so bad, is it? I have seen Welsh National Opera many times at the Hippodrome.