A child called Brock who is displaced from her home and wonders if life might be better among the badgers underground: Garsington Opera Youth Company in Hannah Conway's Uprooted

Rehearsal for Uprooted - Garsington Opera Youth Company

On 29 July 2025, Garsington Opera Youth Company joins forces with Sinfonia Smith Square to present Uprooted, a new opera by composer Hannah Conway and librettist Hazel Gould, with 80 9-19 year olds performing alongside a professional soloist and musicians at Garsington Opera’s Opera Pavilion.

The opera deals with one of the most troubling UK social issues of our generation, the housing crisis and its effect on children. Conway and Gould have worked with Bee Squad – a community organisation in Manchester whose mission is to improve the quality of life of children affected by homelessness, and listened directly to the stories of the children whose lives have been shaped by this issue.

The original inspiration for the piece came from Jo Spurling, the director of Bee Squad who noticed the differences in the legal and legislative protections around badgers, compared to those around human beings. If a badger mother is expecting cubs, the set cannot be unsettled; you can be prosecuted for it. That protection doesn’t exist for human beings. You can rehouse a pregnant woman many miles away from her support networks and the children’s schools. Uprooted explores this idea from the perspective of a child called Brock who is displaced from her home and wonders if life might be better among the badgers underground.

The opera features Gweneth Ann Rand as Grace and Olivia Mujuru as Brock, with Garsington Opera Youth Company and musicians from Sinfonia Smith Square in a production directed by Karen Gillingham and conducted by Paul Wingfield.

Full details from Garsington Opera.

A vivid sense of style & stagecraft with some of the best Handel singers around: Rodelinda at Garsington Opera

Handel: Rodelinda - Lucy Crowe - Garsington Opera (Photo: courtesy Garsington Opera)

Handel: Rodelinda; Lucy Crowe, Tim Mead, Ed Lyon, Brandon Cedel, Marvic Monreal, Hugh Cutting, director: Ruth Knight, the English Concert, conductor: Peter Whelan; Garsington Opera
Reviewed 29 June 2025

With a title role performed with real style and agency by Lucy Crowe partnered by Tim Mead singing with luminous tone there is plenty to enjoy, complemented by an intelligent and imaginative presentation of some real drama

Unlike some Baroque operas, where narrative logic takes second place to the creation of dramatic situations that put their characters through a series of moral dilemmas, Handel's Rodelinda has a remarkable focus to its plot. Partly, this is because the drama concentrates on Rodelinda and Bertarido and the piece becomes, effectively, an examination of marital fidelity. Of course, there are logic holes too; in Act Three, for instance, Nicola Francesco Haym's libretto rather trips up on itself in order to give Rodelinda a scene where she believes Bertarido is dead. But what a scene it is. And that is the attraction of this opera; Handel at his peak writing music allied to a libretto that requires a lot less special pleading than some Baroque operas.

For its new production of Handel's Rodelinda, Garsington Opera has turned to Ruth Knight for a production that builds on Handel's focus on the title role by giving Rodelinda real agency. We caught the performance on Sunday 29 June 2025. The English Concert was conducted by Peter Whelan, artistic director of the Irish Baroque Orchestra with whom he performed Vivaldi's L'Olimpiade with Irish National Opera in 2024 [see my review].

Handel: Rodelinda - Tim Mead, Marvic Monreal - Garsington Opera (Photo: courtesy Garsington Opera)

Lucy Crowe was Rodelinda with Tim Mead as Bertarido, plus Ed Lyon as Grimoaldo, Brandon Cedel as Garibaldo, Marvic Monreal as Eduige and Hugh Cutting as Unulfo. Designs were by Leslie Travers with lighting by Ben Pickersgill and movement by Rebecca Meltzer.

Travers' elegant set was based around steelwork that almost seemed an extension of the theatre itself. The look was modern, with a series of balconies and linking upper walkway which imaginatively gave the stage two levels. Costumes were modern, but there was also an element to the exotic too; place and time were nonspecific, though the characters' obsession with regal regalia (crown, orb and sceptre) placed it at a remove from the contemporary. There was a playful element, when Bertarido is in disguise in Act 2, Tim Mead wore a costume that would not have disgraced Elton John in his pomp, and when Garibaldo made public appearances he wore a mask somewhat similar to something Orville Peck would wear. But the biggest visual stimulus during the opera was the use of 14 dancers who formed a troupe that did Garibaldo and Grimoaldo's bidding, but also acted as a sort of visual commentary.

Celebrating Rodelinda: Garsington Opera and the Handel Hendrix House mark 300 years since the premiere of Handel's opera

A caricature of a performance of Handel's Flavio (from 1723) featuring Senesino and Francesca Cuzzoni with Berenstadt (far right)

Handel's opera Rodelinda was premiered 300 years ago this year, on 13 February 1725 at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket (the original King's Theatre burned down in 1789 and His Majesty's Theatre is currently on the site). Celebrations to mark the anniversary include an exhibition at the Handel Hendrix House which features a rarely seen portrait of castrato Senesino in the role of Bertarido from Rodelinda by John Vandenbank (see my article) and Garsington Opera's new production of the opera, directed by Ruth Knight with Lucy Crowe as Rodelinda, Tim Mead as Bertarido and Peter Whelan conducting the English Concert.

Senesino by John Vandenbank. Private Collection, UK.
© The Handel House Trust/Christopher Ison.

Rodelinda was successful during Handel's lifetime, with 14 performances that season and the opera was revived the following season and in 1731. It was also presented under Telemann's auspices at the Oper am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg. The revival of the opera in 1920 in Göttingen by Handel enthusiast Oskar Hagen represented an important step in the modern revival of Handel's operas.

Handel had a strong team of singers for the 1724/1725 season of the Royal Academy of Music and his operas for the company that season represent him at his peak, Tamerlano which premiered on 31 October 1724, then Rodelinda (with the same cast) on 13 February 1725. And just to show that he was on a roll, he had already premiered Giulio Cesare in February 1724. 

His cast featured castrato Senesino as Bertarido. Senesino first sang for Handel in 1720, in a revival of Radamisto and he would go on to create 17 leading roles for the composer. Rodelinda was sung by soprano Francesca Cuzzoni, who first sang Teofane in Ottone for Handel in 1723, going on to create nine roles for Handel. Horace Walpole famously described her thus, in Rodelinda:

"She was short and squat, with a doughy cross face, but fine complexion; was not a good actress; dressed ill; and was silly and fantastical. And yet on her appearing in this opera, in a brown silk gown trimmed with silver, with the vulgarity and indecorum of which all the old ladies were much scandalised, the young adopted it as a fashion, so universally, that it seemed a national uniform for youth and beauty."

What gives Rodelinda (and Tamerlano) their distinctive cast in the Handel opera canon is that during the 1724/25 season, Handel's team also included the distinguished tenor Francesco Borosini. Not only did Borosini create the roles of Bajazet in Tamerlano and Grimoaldo in Rodelinda, but Handel rewrote the soprano castrato role of Sesto in Giulio Cesare for him, creating significant amounts of new material.

The libretto for Rodelinda is by Nicola Haym, a London-based Italian who was a composer, cellist (one of Handel's continuo cellists), poet and general man of all work. Rodelinda is one of around eight librettos that Haym adapted for Handel. It was based on an earlier one, originally set by Giacomo Antonio Perti in 1710 which in turn was based on Pierre Corneille's tragedy Pertharite, roi des Lombards (1652), with Pertharite becoming Bertarido. As was usual for London, Haym's libretto cuts significant amounts of recitative and concentrates on the two leading characters, Rodelinda and Bertarido.

The combination of the theme of marital love and fidelity with a strong libretto and Handel at his peak have ensured that the opera has been frequently revived, and it is thought that the marital fidelity theme was instrumental in persuading Hagen to revive the opera in 1920.

Garsington Opera's production of Handel's Rodelinda opens on 13 June 2025. Directed by Ruth Knight and designed by Leslie Travers, the cast includes Lucy Crowe as Rodelinda, Tim Mead as Bertarido, Ed Lyon as Grimoaldo, Marvic Monreal as Eduige, Hugh Cutting as Unulfo and Brandon Cedel as Garibaldo. Peter Whelan conducts the English Concert. 

Further information from the Garsington Opera website.

An intergenerational community: Garsington Opera brings its Youth and Adult community companies together for Andrew Norman's A Trip to the Moon

Andrew Norman: A Trip to the Moon - Youth Company rehearsal, Garsington Opera 2024 (Photo: Julian Guidera)

American composer Andrew Norman is perhaps best known for his orchestral works from Sacred Geometry (2003) to Play (2013) to Sustain (2018), which have won various awards including the 2017 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition and finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Music, whilst the Los Angeles Philharmonic won the Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance for their 2019 recording of Sustain.

Norman has, so far, only written one opera, A Trip to the Moon from 2017 which is subtitled 'a melodrama for children'. The work was commissioned by Simon Rattle and premiered in Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic, 200 volunteer singers and an orchestra made up of school children alongside members of the Philharmonic. Norman says of the piece that it was 'conceived as an experience as much for the wide variety of people making it as for the audience watching it.' But that it is 'first and foremost a children’s opera, to be performed by and for children'. Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra gave the work its first UK performance in a semi-staging at the Barbican Hall. 

Andrew Norman: A Trip to the Moon - Adult Company rehearsal, Garsington Opera 2024 (Photo: Julian Guidera)

Andrew Norman's A Trip to the Moon is now receiving a full staging at Garsington Opera on 30 and 31 July 2024, directed by Karen Gillingham, (Gasington's Creative Director of Learning & Participation), and conducted by Douglas Boyd with the Philharmonia Orchestra, professional soloists including Robert Murray and Jennifer France, and the Garsington Opera Youth and Adult community companies, plus children from two local primary schools making some 150 local people in all. 

This is a community performance, and as with Garsington's other community ventures, the event is inter-generational, with local people of different generations working shoulder-to-shoulder with professional singers and creative teams.

For many members of the Youth and Adult companies, the performance brings the experience of working alongside professionals as well as the chance to make friends with other company members. As one members of the Adult company put it, 'I have been involved in Garsington Opera Adult Company for over 13 years and I love it. Singing brings me joy and I relish the challenge of pushing myself outside my comfort zone. Learning about the intricate tapestry of an opera’s creation alongside top-tier professionals is something truly wonderful.' 

As Karen Gillingham explains, 'the infant group (5-7yr olds) came up with moon games - crater hop scotch and meteoroid football. They are bursting with ideas and super cute. One of the children is suffering from severe trauma and is selective mute. He loves the rehearsals and sings during them. It is an act of bravery for him to do this.' 

Andrew Norman: A Trip to the Moon - Adult Company rehearsal, Garsington Opera 2024 (Photo: Julian Guidera)

The opera takes its theme from Georges Méliès' seminal 1902 silent film [see it on YouTube], and the fantastical opera explores how linguistic barriers must be broken down so that Earth people can communicate with Moon people, who have their own lyrical lunar language, and eventually they all learn to rise above their mutual mistrust and come together to overcome a mysterious threat.

The images in this article were taken at recent rehearsals for A Trip to the Moon with the Garsington Opera Youth and Adult community companies at the new Garsington Studios.

Full details from Garsington Opera's website.

Fine singing and vivid character in this revival of John Cox's vintage production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at Garsington

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - David Ireland, Claire Lees - Garsington Opera, 2024 (Photo: Julian Guidera)

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro; David Ireland, Claire Lees, Rafael Fingerlos, Samantha Clarke, Bethany Horak-Hallett, director: John Cox/Bruno Ravella, Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor: Tabita Berglund; Garsington Opera
Reviewed 14 July 2024

A solidly sung revival of a production that is becoming a classic, telling the story with clarity and vivid detail, with classy singing that lifted this from an ordinary revival

John Cox's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro was created back in 2005 for a very different Garsington, when the company was in its original home. It is a classic production, one that tells the story with elegance, clarity and humour. This year, the production was revived by director Bruno Ravella. We caught the performance on 14 July 2024, when Tabita Berglund conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra with David Ireland as Figaro, Claire Lees as Susanna, Rafael Fingerlos as the Count, Samantha Clarke as the Countess, Bethany Horak-Hallett as Cherubino, Neal Davies as Dr. Bartolo, Susan Bickley as Marcellina, Stephanie Hershaw as Barbarina and Paul Nilon as Don Basilio. Designs were by Robert Perdziola, with lighting by Malcolm Rippeth.

Perdziola's set started out as an assemblage of architectural fragments, providing the corner of Figaro and Susanna's room along with necessary corridors. For the scene change to Act Two, the set was simplified and altered, and then for Act Three it was simplified again, whilst the entire set was re-dressed for the garden scene. It might have not been the most luxurious of sets, but Perdziola succeeded in capturing the right atmosphere (I loved the forbidding neo-Velázquez portrait gallery) and for the complexities of the more farcical moments in Acts One and Two, the set provided just the right engine. Even here, there were imaginative touches, so that in Act Two we could see inside the closet with first Cherubino (Bethany Horak-Hallett) and then Susanna (Claire Lees) patiently waiting.

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - Claire Lees, Samantha Clarke - Garsington Opera, 2024 (Photo: Julian Guidera)

2022 winners announced for Garsington Opera's awards for young artists

Garsington Opera 2022 awards winners (Photo Julian Guidera)
John Findon, Polly Leech, Ellie de Jongh, Frazer Scott

We caught tenor John Findon at Garsington Opera last month when he played the role of the Prince in Rusalka, covering for Gerard Schneider [see my review]. Findon impressed greatly in what was his role debut and so it is no surprise that he was awarded the Leonard Ingrams Award in Garsington Opera's recent announcement of its 2022 awards to young artists. The other recipient of a Leonard Ingrams Award is mezzo-soprano Polly Leech who played Dorabella in the revival of John Cox's production of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte.

Two Alvarez Young Artists also received awards. Frazer Scott received the Helen Clarke Award; he played the role of Caronte in Monteverdi's Orfeo, was the understudy for the role of Harry in Roxanna Panufnik's Dalia, and was a member of the ensemble. Ellie de Jongh received the Simon Sanbach Award; she was a was a member of the chorus for Rusalka and performed the role of the Foreign Princess in at one performance when Sky Ingram was indisposed. She was also the understudy for Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw.

Full details from the Garsington Opera website.

Poetic drama & real musicality: highly imaginative Rusalka from Jack Furness at Garsington with Natalya Romaniw as a compelling water nymph

Dvorak: Rusalka - Natalya Romaniw - Garsington Opera (Photo Clive Barda)

Antonin Dvorak: Rusalka; Natalya Romaniw, John Findon, Henry Waddington, Christine Rice, Sky Ingram, director: Jack Furness, Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor: Douglas Boyd; Garsington Opera at Wormsley,
Reviewed 24 June 2022 (★★★★★)

Musically superb, dramatically convincing and highly poetic account of Dvorak's fairy-tale that combined a poetic approach with a mining of the work's darker element and a highly imaginative staging

Garsington Opera planned its production of Dvorak’s Rusalka for 2020 with Natalya Romaniw in the title role. Cancelled and re-scheduled for 2022, thankfully still with Romaniw, the production debuted last week with a new director at the helm.

We caught Jack Furness’ new production of Dvorak’s Rusalka at Garsington Opera on Friday 24 June 2022. Douglas Boyd conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra with Natalya Romaniw as Rusalka. Illness the cast meant that John Findon (previously Hajny) sang the Prince, Henry Waddington sang Vodnik and Dominick Felix sang Hajny. Christine Rice was Jezibaba, Grace Durham was Kuchtik, and Sky Ingram was the Foreign Princess. Designs were by Tom Piper, lighting by Malcolm Rippeth, choreography by Fleur Darkin with Lina Johansson as circus choreographer.

Dvorak’s opera debuted in 1901, over 20 years after his Slavonic Quartet, the work in which he crystallised his style, combining Czech folk-style rhythms and melodies with Romantic structures. In Rusalka, Dvorak might owe something to Wagner but the sound-world with its rhythms and melodic outlines is pure Czech. And even the story is a similar synthesis, combining elements of Romantic tales like Undine with traditional Czech characters and the poetry of K.J. Erben whose main work, A Garland (1853) created a new style of Czech poetry influence by, but not strictly copying folk poetry. Thus Rusalka is not strictly a traditional Czech folk-inspired work, but a Romantic synthesis.

Congratulations: Garsington presents end-of-season awards to four young artists

The season at Garsington has come to a close and the company has presented awards to four young artists who took part in the season, in recognition of their professional and personal contributions and musical skill.

Two Leonard Ingrams Awards go to America soprano Madison Leonard, who made her Garsington debut as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier this season, and to director Cecilia Stinton, who was assistant director on the revival of Michael Boyd's production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin [see my review of the original 2016 production] and directed the understudies in a full performance for an audience of first timers, as well as working on the complex COVID protocols for the production of Rossini's Le comte Ory.

The Helen Clarke Award goes to soprano Katy Thompson, an Alvarez Young Artist, who was in the chorus for Der Rosenkavalier and gave a triumphant performance as Die Marschallin on 13 June when Miah Persson was indisposed.

The Simon Sandbach Award goes to bass-baritone Ossian Huskinson, an Alvarez Young Artist, who was in the chorus for Eugene Onegin and Le comte Ory, and  role of Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin, and understudied the role of Prince Gremin, which he sang at OperaFirst (Garsington's scheme to introduce school children to opera). [We saw Huskinson as King Rene in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta at the Royal Academy of Music in 2019, see my review].

All awards are financial, for help with professional development, and each is presented in memory of an important figure from Garsington Opera’s history. The Leonard Ingrams Awards are made in memory of Garsington Opera's founder to continue his vision of supporting, encouraging and nurturing the best young artists involved in the creative process of bringing opera to the stage. The Helen Clarke and Simon Sandbach Awards were created in memory of members of the Garsington Opera team and are made in recognition of singers' exceptional talent, musical skill and contribution to Garsington Opera's productions.

Full details from the
Garsington website.

A bright spot in 2021: Garsington Opera's plans for its celebration of 10 years at Wormsley

Richard Strauss: Capriccio - Miah Persson - Garsington Opera 2018 (Photo Johan Persson)

When feeling low in the midst of stress or in the dark days of mid-Winter, it is often comforting to make holiday plans, to leaf through brochures. The plans may come to naught, but simply knowing that they might happen, that there is something to look forward to, is a big boost. It is perhaps in this vein that we should peruse Garsington Opera's 2021 season brochure, celebrating its 10th anniversary at Wormsley. There is much to anticipate.

There is a new production of Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier (shared with Irish National Opera and Santa Fe Opera) directed by Bruno Ravella [who directed Verdi's Falstaff at the festival in 2018] with Miah Persson making her role debut as the Marschallin [Persson made a fine Countess in Capriccio in 2018, see my review], with Hannah Hipp as Octavian [Hipp sang the title role in the festival's 2019 production of Offenbach's Fantasio, see my review], and Soraya Mafi as Sophie, with Derrick Ballard as Baron Ochs. The opera will be conducted by Jordan de Souza.

Another highlight is a new production of Rossini's Le comte Ory, an opera not performed anything like as often as it should be. Directed by Cal McCrystal [who directed ENO's 2018 production of G&S's Iolanthe, see my review] and conducted by Valentina Peleggi [who conducted Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld at ENO in 2019], the cast includes American tenor Jack Swanson (making his role debut) and Robert Murray sharing the title role with Andrea Carroll, Katie Bray and Jacques Imbrailo.

Michael Boyd's 2016 production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin [see my review] is returning with Jonathan McGovern [whom we last saw as Andrei in WNO's terrific production of Prokofiev's War and Peace, see my review] in the title role with Moldovan soprano Natalia Tanasii as Tatyana and Sam Furness [whom we saw in David Sawer's The Skating Rink at the 2018 festival, see my review] as Lensky. Douglas Boyd conducts.

The above three operas will be using the Philharmonia Orchestra, but the English Concert will be in the pit for a new production of Handel's Amadigi. Written in 1715, it was the fifth opera that Handel wrote for London. It has some superb music and I have seen some very fine stage productions of the opera, but it is notorious because of the work's five characters all are high voices (contralto or soprano) and one character dies in Act One; there are no tenors and basses in the cast. Garsington's production will be directed by Netia Jones and conducted by Christian Curnyn, with Sonja Runje, Anna Devin, Rhian Lois and Tim Mead.

2021's community opera will be The Selfish Giant, based on Oscar Wilde's story with music by John Barber and words by Jessica Duchen.

Full details from the Garsington Opera website.

World Stroke Day: debut Orlando Gough's new film opera with Garsington Opera, Rosetta Life and stroke survivors

Today (29 October 2020) is World Stroke Day and later today a new filmed opera by Orlando Gough, I look for the think, will receive its debut for staff and patients at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Made by Garsington Opera and their partners Rosetta Life with stroke survivors, Garsington's adult community company and professional singers during lockdown, the work is about love after stroke. sixty stroke survivors, supported by pioneering arts-health organisation Rosetta Life and by their carers, worked to overcome the physical and neurological difficulties that prevent them from using tools that most take for granted: keyboards, microphones, headphones and the internet. Together with professional musicians, soloists Robert Gildon and Melanie Pappenheim, and the Adult Community Company from Garsington Opera, the participants from Bristol, Berkshire and London rehearsed and filmed a twelve-minute opera, I Look For The Think, based on the lived experience of participant Kim Fraser and his wife and carer, Sarah.

The film will be screened on Rosetta Life's Facebook page at 6pm tonight, when there will be a live Q&A with the practitioners, alongside the launch of Recovering Hope, the handbook for Stroke Odysseys, the arts health intervention that I Look For The Think is part of.

The film will be available on OperaVision.

Live opera returns to Garsington: Beethoven's 'Fidelio' in semi-staged performances

Beethoven: Fidelio - Garsington Opera in 2014

Amongst the losses from Garsington Opera's 2020 season was the revival of John Cox's production of Beethoven's Fidelio with Toby Spence in the role of Florestan. With the relaxation of lockdown, Garsington Opera has been able to schedule four semi-staged performances of Beethoven's Fidelio on 12, 14, 18 and 20 September 2020. Toby Spence will be Florestan with Katherine Broderick as Leonore, and Douglas Boyd conducts with members of the Philharmonia Orchestra.

When Garsington Opera last performed Fidelio, after the season at Wormsley Douglas Boyd conducted the Garsington cast in a performance of Beethoven's opera at the Philharmonie in Paris with L'Orchestre de chamber de Paris. For that occasion Peter Mumford, who had directed Opera North's semi-staged Ring cycle including designing video projections, and created a semi-staging involving video projections and it is this version that Fidelio will be performed at Garsington in September.

Further details are due to be announced, but it is wonderful to be able to report on live performance with an audience again.

Garsington's Youth Opera Company to premiere Paul Fincham's debut opera The Happy Princess at Wormsley in August

Garsington Opera - Silver Birch rehearsals, Sam Furness
with the community chorus in 2017 (Photo John Snelling)

In 2017, Garsington Opera staged Roxanna Panufnik and Jessica Duchen's Silver Birch, an opera whose performers combined professionals with a significant number of members of the local communities, from children to adults. This event was part of Garsington Opera's significant Learning and Participation programme which now extends to a Youth Opera Company which covers both Primary Schools and Secondary Schools, plus the Adult Community Company. This is in addition to the Opera First programme, where a team goes into a school to do workshops on and introduce an opera, and the participants are invited to a performance at Wormsley given by Garsington Opera's Alvarez Young Artists.

This year, a new opera has been commissioned for the Youth Company (80 young people aged 8 to 21), The Happy Princess by composer Paul Fincham. Based on Oscar Wilde's story The Happy Prince, the opera updates the action to the present and transforms the prince into a princess. It will be premiered on 2 August 2019 on Garsington Opera's main stage at Wormsley when the Youth Opera Company will be joined by soprano soprano Lara Marie Müller who won the Garsington Opera 2017 Simon Sandbach Award, and a professional chamber ensemble. It will be conducted by Jonathon Swinard, Head of Music at Garsington Opera, with Karen Gillingham (director), Suzi Zumpe (vocal director) and Ruth Paton (designer). The libretto for the opera is by Jessica Duchen, librettist of Silver Birch.

Fincham studied music at Cambridge where he was musical director of the Cambridge Footlights (where a fellow students included Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie and Nicholas Hyntner). But he did first career completely unrelated to music. After a 30 year career he took the plunge and became a full time composer. He wrote the music for the film Reason to Leave, starring Claire King, going on to win the best original score award at the London International Filmmakers’ Festival in 2017. The Happy Princess is his first opera.

Further details from the Garsington website.

A lyric melancholy vein: the UK stage debut of Offenbach's late opera comique Fantasio intrigues and engages at Garsington Opera

Offenbach: Fantasio - Timothy Robinson, Hanna Hipp - Garsington Opera 2019 (Photo John Snelling)

Offenbach Fantasio; Hanna Hipp, Jennifer France, Huw Montague Rendall, Timothy Robinson, Graeme Broadbent Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 16 June 2019 Star rating: 4.5 (★★★★½)
Offenbach in lyric melancholy vein, in the first UK staging of his late opera comique

Offenbach: Fantasio - Jennifer France
Garsington Opera 2019 (Photo Clive Barda)

Offenbach's Fantasio is one of the works where, replacing the mad-cap satire of his earlier operettas with a more romantic melancholy, he paved the way for Les contes d'Hoffmann. Unpopular during his lifetime, Fantasio disappeared and only work by the musicologist Jean-Christophe Keck brought the score together again. Opera Rara's recording of the work was released in in 2014 [see my review], and there was an associated concert performance. At the time, I wondered quite how this transitional piece would work on the stage, and now Garsington Opera has given us the opportunity to find out.

Staged at Garsington by Martin Duncan (seen Sunday 16 June 2019), Offenbach's Fantasio featured Hanna Hipp as Fantasio, Jennifer France as Princess Elsbeth, Timothy Robinson as Marinoni, Huw Montague Rendall as the Prince of Mantua, Graeme Broadbent as the King of Bavaria and Bianca Andrew was Flamel. Justin Doyle conducted the Garsington Opera Orchestra and Garsington Opera Chorus. The work was performed in a new English translation by Jeremy Sams.

Fantasio was written for the Opera Comique in Paris in 1870, but the premiere was delayed owing to the Franco-Prussian war. It debuted in 1872 with Celestine Galli-Marie (the first Carmen) in the title role. Based on a relatively unsuccessful play by Alfred de Musset, Fantasio was a somewhat daring choice and the piece failed, much to Offenbach's distress. There may be an element of identification, many commentators see Offenbach himself in the role of the melancholy clown Fantasio.

A poor student, Fantasio (Hanna Hipp) takes advantage of the death of the King's jester to take up that role and in this position gets close to the Princess Elsbeth (Jennifer France), whom he has serenaded unseen. Elsbeth is due to be married to the Prince of Mantua (Huw Montague-Rendall) but wants to marry for love. The prince is keen to be loved for himself and swaps clothes with his aide-de-camp, Marinoni (Timothy Robinson). Fantasio gets close to the Princess, and disrupts the wedding plans by revealing the Prince's disguise. Thrown into prison, he reveals his true self to the Princess who helps him escape, and he persuades the Prince to sign a peace treaty. The marriage however, is off, and the work ends with the Princess letting Fantasio keep the key to her 'secret garden'.

Offenbach: Fantasio - Huw Montague Rendall, Timothy Robinson, Jennifer France, Graeme Broadbent
Garsington Opera 2019 (Photo Clive Barda)

The work, in fact, has intriguing elements in common with Chabrier's L'etoile (which premiered in 1875).

The old ethos and a new professionalism: celebrating Garsington Opera at 30

Auditorium of Garsington Opera at Wormsley 2011 (Photo Dennis Gilbert)

Garsington Opera is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, with four new productions at its home at Wormsley. The company has developed considerably since it was first founded by Leonard Ingrams in the garden of his home at Garsington Manor, with the move from the company's original home to the custom designed theatre on the Wormsley Estate initiating a series of remarkable transformations. But along with this the company has tried to keep something of the ethos of the original theatre in a garden. Executive Director Nicola Creed has been with Garsington Opera for 19 years and seen many of these changes through. I met up with Nicola recently, just before the start of rehearsals for the 2019 season, to look forward to the delights to come and to look back a little as well.

Whilst the 2019 season is certainly intended as a celebration, putting together a season is such a complex operation that the resulting combination of operas is a weaving together of a number of strands. Mozart has always been a theme in Garsington programmes, so this year there is a new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The company has presented the opera many times and they are excited to have Michael Boyd (former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company), with his theatre background, tackling the opera for the first time. And evidently he took some convincing.

The season, as ever, has to be a mix of period, and of light and dark. So also present is Britten's The Turn of the Screw, and Britten has been a notable visitor to the festival too with productions of Albert Herring (in the old theatre in 1996), A Midsummer Night's Dream and Death in Venice (2015, see my review), whilst The Turn of the Screw was last done by the company in 1992. Surprisingly the company has never done Smetana's The Bartered Bride, so that is definitely something of a novelty in many ways. And Offenbach's Fantasio, receiving its UK stage premiere, continues Garsington's tradition of excavating rarely performed operas.

Haydn's La vera Costanza - Garsington Opera 1992 (Photo Sally Greene)

There is no revival of a classic production (something that companies often do for anniversaries), but Nicola points out that they only started reviving productions after the move to Wormsley, and now they try to have a revival each year. But she sees the four new productions as a big bold way to celebrate. There are also a number of other anniversaries in the coming years to be acknowledged, so that in 2020 their production of Beethoven's Fidelio makes a notable return, whilst in 2021 the company will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the move to Wormsley.

Garsington's 30th anniversary season

Celestin Boutin, Paul Nilon - Britten: Death in Venice directed by Paul Curran - Garsington Opera 2015 - photo Clive Barda

Garsington Opera celebrates its 30th anniversary this Summer with a season of four new productions including the UK stage premiere of Offenbach's Fantasio, plus Smetana's The Bartered Bride, Mozart's Don Giovanni and Britten's Turn of the Screw.

Offenbach's Fantasio is something of a missing link between his operettas and his romantic operas, Die Rheinixen and Les contes d'Hoffmann. Dating from 1872 Fantasio is much closer to romantic opera than sparky operetta, and the work rather languished until Opera Rara dusted it off and produced a recording in 2014 [see my review]. It feels like a difficult work to pull off, a mix of comedy and melancholy, but Garsington has had success in the past with Offenbach, and this new production will be directed by Martin Duncan, with designs by Francis O'Connor, conducted by Justin Doyle. Hanna Hipp sings the title role (a travestie role) with Jennifer France has his beloved princess. As part of Garsington's extensive Learning & Participation Programme, there will be a full performance of Fantasio by the Alvarez Young Artists for local school pupils and adults, all of whom take part in preparatory workshops to introduce them to opera and deepen their enjoyment of the performance. 

Having directed a super account Britten's Death in Venice at Garsington in 2015 [see my review] Paul Curran is returning with a very different opera, Smetana's The Bartered Bride which will feature Natalya Romaniw as Marenka. Jac van Steen conducts with the Philharmonia Orchestra in the pit. Curran's production will transport this very Czech piece to the heart of the English countryside.

Emerging American director Louisa Muller will make her UK debut directing the new production of Britten's Turn of the Screw with Sophie Bevan as the Governess, Ed Lyon as Prologue/Peter Quint (his role debut) and Katherine Broderick as Miss Jessel. Richard Farnes conducts.

Mozart's Don Giovanni will be directed by Michael Boyd whose recent productions of Eugene Onegin (featuring Natalya Romaniw as Tatyana) and Pelleas et Melisande have been so memorable. Jonathan McGovern sings the Don, with Sky Ingram as Donna Elvira, David Ireland as Leporello, and two UK debuts, Brazilian soprano Camila Titinger as Donna Anna and Canadian soprano Mireille Asselin as Zerlina. Douglas Boyd, Garsington's artistic director, conducts.

2019 also celebrates a new relationship for Garsington, with The English Concert which makes its Garsington debut in three performances of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 with soloists Mary Bevan, Sophie Bevan, Benjamin Hulett, Robert Murray and James Way, conducted by Laurence Cummings.

The season runs from 29 May to 26 July 2019, full details from the Garsington Opera website.

Garsington premiere: David Sawer & Rory Mullarkey's The Skating Rink

David Sawer: The Skating Rink - Alice Poggio, Grant Doyle - Garsington Opera (Photo Johan Persson)

David Sawer & Rory Mullarkey The Skating Rink; Ben Edquist, Sam Furness, Grant Doyle, Susan Bickley, Claire Wild, Alan Oke, Lauren Zolezzi, Louise Winter, Alice Poggio, dir: Stewart Laing, cond: Garry Walker Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 5 July 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Strong performance of a new opera with a very striking voice, inspired by Roberto Bolano's novel

Ben Edquist, Lauren Zolezzi (Photo Johan Persson)

Having premiered Roxanna Panufnik's opera Silver Birch in 2017 as part of its work with local community groups, Garsington Opera's 2018 season included its first commission for the main opera season. David Sawer's opera The Skating Rink premiered at Garsington Opera on Thursday 5 July 2018; based on the novel by Chilean writer Roberto Bolano with a libretto by playwright Rory Mullarkey. 

The production was directed and designed by Stewart Laing, with costumes by Hyemi Shin, lighting by Malcolm Rippeth and movement by Sarah Fahie. The cast included Ben Edquist as Remo, Sam Furness as Gaspar, Susan Bickley as Carmen, Claire Wild as Caridad, Alan Oke as Rookie, Grant Doyle as Enric, Lauren Zolezzi as Nuria, Louise Winter as Pilar and skater Alice Poggio as the skating Nuria. Garry Walker conducted the Garsington Opera Orchestra.

This is Sawer's third opera. His first, From Morning Till Midnight, to his own libretto based on a Georg Kaiser play, was premiered with some success by English National Opera in 2001, though his second opera, in fact an operetta, Skin Deep with a libretto by Amando Iannucci, perhaps failed to quite find its mark when premiered by Opera North in 2009.  This new piece, The Skating Rink, seems something of a return to the darker, expressionist world of From Morning Till Midnight, though not without lighter moments.

Bolano's novel tells the same events from the points of view of three narrators, each of whom is involved in a different way in the events in a 1990s Spanish town on the Costa Brava, where love leads Enric (Grant Doyle) to build an illicit ice skating rink so that Nuria (Lauren Zolezzi and Alice Poggio) can train, but the murder of a former opera singer Carmen (Susan Bickley), now living on the streets, clouds issues.

A little bit of magic: Miah Persson in Richard Strauss's Capriccio at Garsington

Richard Strauss: Capriccio - Gavan Ring, Miah Persson, Sam Furness, Caspar Singh, Nika Gorič, Hanna Hipp, William Dazeley, Andrew Shore - Garsington Opera - (Photo Johan Persson)

Strauss Capriccio; Miah Persson, Sam Furness, Gavan Ring, Andrew Shore, William Dazeley, Hanna Hipp, dir: Tim Albery, cond: Douglas Boyd; Garsington Opera
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 9 June 2018 Star rating: 4.5 (★★★★½)
A strong cast and a radiant account of the title role show that music and art do matter in Richard Strauss's final opera

Miah Persson
Garsington Opera (Photo Johan Persson)

Tim Albery's production of Richard Strauss' Capriccio, a collaboration between Santa Fe Opera and Garsington Opera, debuted in Santa Fe in 2016 [see my review], and it has now reached Garsington with an entirely new cast and conductor. We caught the 4th performance on Saturday 9 June 2018; Douglas Boyd conducted with Miah Persson as the Countess (her role debut), William Dazeley as the Count, Sam Furness as Flamand, Gavan Ring as Olivier, Andrew Shore as La Roche and Hanna Hipp as Clairon.

Tobias Hoheisel's spectacular set consisted of a modernist, Mies van der Rohe-style house with the panelling from an 18th-century room at its centre, like a collected object. The rear wall was glazed and looked out onto a terrace (at Santa Fe this gave a view of the hills beyond the opera house, but in Garsington, this was simply evoked with lighting). Costumes were loosely 1940's with Miah Persson wearing a pair of extremely striking outfits which seemed somewhat later in date than the rest of the costuming.

Premiered in Munich in 1942, Strauss' final opera completely avoids any sense of the war and the troubles which lay behind life at the time and can seem a somewhat sweet confection, a group of aristocrats arguing about music, words and art. But for Strauss, this was a subject which really mattered, and for the opera to work we have to believe that these people really do care intently about art, that it is one of the most important things in their life. The opera is very wordy, very conversational and there is always a limiting factor when hearing it in German with surtitles (like Intermezzo there is a good argument for performing the opera in the language of the audience).

Albery's very physical production had the virtue of making us believe that these people really did care, that what went on in this room mattered. All concerned were highly involved and there was a strong sense of competitive dialogue. Strauss filled the opera with jokes (often musical ones), though we do not always laugh at performances nowadays this one was funny, in the right way. Though at times, the performance veered towards physical comedy especially in the scene were Olivier and Flamand gang up on La Roche and try to decry his old-fashioned ideas for staging opera.

Gavan Ring, Sam Furness - Garsington Opera (Photo Johan Persson)

This physical aspect combined with a performance from Douglas Boyd and the Garsington Opera Orchestra in the pit which created a robustness to the music, pushing it from the conversational to the more conventionally operatic. The big moments tended to flower as dramatic, operatic moments rather than flow as pure conversation. Yet the result was to convince us that these people really meant it.

The big plus for the production was the Countess of Miah Persson, elegant, stylish and completely at ease with the sheer wordiness of the role. The Countess might have one of Strauss' most ravishing scenes in the closing pages of the opera, but to get there the singer must cope with two hours of complex dialogue. Persson made it all seem natural and elegantly intense, as she showed a vivid sense of the words and the dialogue going on around her. Persson was not the flirtiest of Countesses (that palm has to go to Felicity Lott whom I heard in the role in Brussels and at Glyndebourne), in her scenes with Sam Furness (Flamand) and Gavan Ring (Olivier) she created more a sense of muse than a potential mistress. The relations between herself and the two men mattered deeply, but you felt that for this Countess it was art that really drew her in rather than any flirtation leading to a possible sexual relationship.

Garsington 2018 - new opera, new collaboration

Tim Albery's production of Richard Strauss's Capriccio at Santa Fe Opera ((c) Ken Howard for Santa Fe Opera 2016)

This year's Garsington Festival presents four operas on the main stage, including a new opera by David Sawer, and a new collaboration between Garsington Opera and Santa Fe Opera. From 31 May to 22 July 2018, the festival will feature Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Richard Strauss' Capriccio, Verdi's Falstaff and David Sawer's The Skating Rink.

Sawer's The Skating Rink receives its world premiere on 5 July 2018, Stewart Laing directs and Garry Walker conducts with a cast which includes Lauren Zolezzi, Neal Davies, Sam Furness and Susan Bickley, with the young American baritone Ben Edquist making his UK debut. The opera is based on on the novel by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, with a libretto by playwright Rory Mullarkey. A skating rink does feature in the opera, and you can't help wishing that Garsington had programmed it with Kander and Ebb's The Rink! [In fact The Rink is coming to Southwark Playhouse in May 2018]

Tim Albery's new production of Richard Strauss' Capriccio is a collaboration with Santa Fe Opera where the production debuted in 2016 [see my review]. At Garsington, Miah Persson is the Countess, with Gavan Ring and Sam Furness as her potential lovers, Hannah Hipp as Clairon and Graham Clark as Monsieur Taupe. Douglas Boyd conducts.

The new production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte is directed by Netia Jones and conducted by Christian Curnyn, both making their Garsington debuts, with Benjamin Hulett and Louise Alder as Tamino and Pamina, with Jonathan McGovern as Pappageno and James Creswell as Sarastro. The Costa Rican soprano Íride Martínez sings Queen of the Night and the Three Ladies will be sung by Katherine Crompton, Marta Fontanals-Simmons and Katie Stevenson, all of whom are alumnae of the Garsington Opera Alvarez Young Artists’ Programme. There will also be a full performance of Die Zauberflöte, by the present crop of Alvarez Young Artists, for local adults and students from local schools, all of whom will have taken part in a programme of workshops to fire their enthusiasm for opera.

Verdi's Falstaff is directed by Bruno Ravella, with Richard Farnes conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. Henry Waddington sings the title role, with Mary Dunleavy, Richard Burkhard, Soraya Mafi, Victoria Simmonds, Yvonne Howard, Oliver Johnston, Colin Judson, Adrian Thompson and Nicholas Crawley.

Full details from the Garsington Opera website.

Musical comedy: Rossini's Il turco in Italia returns to Garsington

Rossini: Il turco in Italia - Garsington Opera 2017 - Sarah Tynan (Fiorilla) in chorus (Photo Alice Pennefather)

Rossini Il turco in Italia; Quirijn de Lang, Sarah Tynan, Mark Stone, Katie Bray, Geoffrey Dolton, dir: Martin Duncan, cond: David Parry
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Jun 26 2017
Star rating: 4.0
An entertaining outing for one of Rossini's most complex comedies

Martin Duncan's production of Rossini's Il turco in Italia debuted in 2011, only the second production to be performed in Garsington Opera's then new home at Wormsley. Revived for the first time on 25 June 2017, David Parry was again conducting with Quirijn de Lang as Selim, Geoffrey Dolton as Don Geronio and Mark Stone as Prosdocimo returning to their roles, plus Sarah Tynan as Fiorilla, Katie Bray as Zaide, Luciano Botelho as Narciso and Jack Swanson as Albazar. Designs were by Francis O'Connor, with lighting by Mark Jonathan and movement by Nick Winston.

The production is set in a Naples of the 1950s. But this is a witty picture-postcard Naples, with clean-cut healthy gypsies, and sunny temperaments all round; Francis O'Connor's giant postcard forming a backdrop from which Fiorilla (Sarah Tynan) and Geronio's (Geoffrey Dolton) house appears, and the prow of Selim's (Quirijn de Lang) yacht dramatically pierces through. Prosdocimo's (Mark Stone) balcony overlooking the bay is always in view, and we see Prosdocimo at work constantly throughout the opera.

Duncan's production was very much a combination of music and movement, not for nothing was Nick Winston movement director and assistant director. Each solo and ensemble was carefully and wittily choreographed, in a way which charmed and delighted yet emphasised the artificiality of Rossini's drama. Yet Duncan and Winston never pulled focus, and the show was a brilliantly entertaining piece of musical theatre which ensured that we always concentrated on the right people on stage. The large set pieces mirroring Rossini's big ensembles were a particular delight.

As yet the production seems slightly under-cooked, as if there has not been quite enough rehearsal time on the Garsington stage. I was aware of small ensemble problems, and the fact that complex vocal ensembles are accompanied by complex movements does make the production a particular challenge. For the first time since coming to Garsington Opera's new home, I was aware of the sheer width of the stage, perhaps because Francis O'Connor's set, with its large postcard back drop set at an angle, was rather acoustically unhelpful, projecting sound at an angle.

In many ways Il turco in Italia is one of the most human of Rossini's comedies, and the character's less cardboard cut-out than some. But Duncan's production seemed to be encouraging us to enjoy the piece as a mechanism, and it did not always bring out the humanity of the characters. Perhaps, once the production has bedded in this will happen more, but you felt that the cast were concentrating more on performing a show for us rather than interacting as characters. There were, however, strong individual performers and those returning to the production (Quirijn de Lang, Mark Stone and Geoffrey Dolton) were most successful at making us care for their characters.

Mark Stone, on stage for most of the time and often acting as puppet master, really made the show. His is not always a natural Rossini voice, but he brought a frankness, openness and vivid sense of character to Prosdocimo which made you care for him, and made his need to find a plot and write his play really matter.