Deep in the rolling hills of Surrey is Grange Park Opera, set in the grounds of West Horsley Place, a magical location where you will find a crinkle-crankle wall, a woodland glade, an ancient orchard with a 300 year-old mulberry tree and a Theatre in the Woods ringing with first class opera. An evening with…
Waterperry Opera Festival 2021 – Review: The Elixir of Love
Waterperry Opera Festival’s L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love) went out with a bang on Tuesday with its final performance of Donizetti’s opera buffa. Sung in English and performed by a youthful, zippy cast, it was a joy for those of us who were so very grateful to be enjoying a “normal” night of opera,…
Oxford Lieder 2020 Review: Song in the Age of Corona
Covid-19 and its pesky restrictions threw a spanner in the Oxford Lieder Festival 2020 works this year, but it didn’t dampen the spirits or the music. The UK’s biggest song festival went online instead, streaming over 40 magnificent recital concerts and events, most of them live and all set in historical surroundings across the city….
Vache Baroque Festival: Dido and Aeneas review
What a cracking start to the shiny new Vache Baroque Festival which kicked off with an enchanting production of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. And a double dose of September showers did nothing to dampen the audience’s spirits. We were more than delighted to tuck into the one-hour Baroque fancy in the grounds of this…
Waterperry Opera Festival 2020 – Review: Così fan tutte and Ariel
Last updated on August 17th, 2020This week was one of firsts: I was introduced to the delightful Waterperry Opera Festival; picnicked in a socially-distanced lawn pod listening to Mozart’s Così fan tutte; sampled some of British composer Jonathan Dove’s genius amongst the butterflies and the bumblebees; and got lost in Waterperry Gardens, the festival’s enchanting…
Fantasio at Garsington Opera
Manolo Blahnik, who has taken up a well-heeled residence at the Wallace Collection in London, would feel right at home on the Garsington Opera stage this summer. That’s because its version of Offenbach’s Fantasio offers a powdering of Marie Antoinette (the Sofia Coppola version) with some flamboyant Commedia dell’Arte thrown in. And whilst poor old…
The London Season
Last updated on September 25th, 2024The Chelsea Flower Show may officially kick-start the London Season, but for me, it’s the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy that gets summer in London off to a rip-roaring start. The world’s largest open submission art exhibition signals a tee off for strawberries and cream, cucumber sandwiches, Pimms and…
Dressed to Impress
Last updated on March 10th, 2019I’ve taken to wearing trainers these days. Not very Parisienne, I hear you say. I gave up on the heels when I realised I could cover so much more of London in a day with a bit of padding between me and the London beat. And recently, someone had the…
The Skating Rink at Garsington Opera
Last updated on August 16th, 2020I always approach contemporary opera with a dose of trepidation. Often inaccessible and veiled in discordant notes, it’s easy to veer in the direction of more traditional composition. But as I headed back to Garsington Opera in Wormsley earlier this week, I was pleasantly surprised and somewhat bowled over by…
Le Nozze di Garsington Opera
Last updated on February 3rd, 2020The French for twilight is crépuscule, a word which conjures up that gleaming, twinkling time of day which is neither light nor dark, when the Goddess Nyx starts her magic dance. And Garsington Opera puts on a witching hour like no other with the thrilling sound of music and song…