By HARRIETTE BRAINARD
MIDDLEBURY/BRANDON — Left without a venue for its annual summer production due to the ongoing renovations at the Town Hall Theater, the Opera Company of Middlebury instead is bringing English-style opera in the country to the Champlain Valley.
Next month the company will host “A Touch of Glyndebourne,” an event that invites guests to tour and picnic on the grounds of Fran Bull’s Gallery in-the-Field in Brandon before enjoying a musical performance in the art gallery.
“It’s one of the most beautiful spots in the county,” said Douglas Anderson, executive director of the THT and director of the upcoming opera. “The studio, where we will have the production, is more like a small, air-conditioned barn. It seemed the perfect spot for a gem of an opera.”
By JOHN FLOWERS
ADDISON COUNTY — The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will soon hire a consultant to do an inventory of existing septic systems that are working in difficult clay soils and determine whether those systems could be more widely used in Addison County.
Many local building projects and subdivisions remain on hold in the county due to the inability of developers to put in septic systems that will pass state permitting standards. Much of that has to do with Addison County clay, a largely impermeable substance that can lead to sewage effluent surfacing on top of the leach fields — something that is prohibited under state rules.
