A first La bohème, The Elixir of Love returns, Peter Rabbit and music in the ballroom: Waterperry Opera Festival announces full details of its 2026 season

Mozart: Don Giovanni at Wateerperry Opera Festival in 2025 (Photo: Julian Guidera)

Waterperry Opera Festival has announced details of its 2026 season, the first under new artistic director John Savournin. Headline productions are Puccini’s La bohème and Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, both performed in English.

For the company's first ever production of La bohème, Faryl Smith makes her debut as Mimì, with Robert Forrest as Rodolfo, Ceferina Penny as Musetta and Jolyon Loy as Marcello, conducted by Bertie Baigent, and directed by Ruth Knight [who directed Handel's Rodelinda at Garsington last year, see my review].

The Elixir of Love [which was first performed by the company in 2021 in a production by Dan Ayling, see my review] sees the return of the creative team behind 2025’s Don Giovanni - director John Wilkie and conductor Charlotte Politi. There will be a new English libretto by David Eaton [John Savournin's co-conspirator from Charles Court Opera], and the production features Daisy Brown as Adina, Matthew McKinney as Nemorino, Matthew Kellett as Dulcamara and James Geidt as Belcore. 

There will be a revival of the hugely popular 2023 family production, Peter Rabbit’s Musical Adventures, a lively and accessible show introducing children to live classical music and storytelling in the enchanting setting of the amphitheatre, performed by festival favourite Oskar McCarthy. 

A brand new concert series, Music in the Ballroom, gives audiences the chance to experience exceptional singers up close, in the charming ballroom of Waterperry House.  Performers will include the festival’s artistic director, bass-baritone John Savournin, and baritone Roderick Williams, along with two recitals performed in collaboration with young artists from Opera Prelude. 

Other events include Last Night at the Opera, an exuberant celebration of operatic highlights, and Serenades, an afternoon of music by Mozart and Dvořák in a beautiful outdoor setting, plus free events including a sing-along Come and Sing workshop, children’s Craft Workshops, and the Young Artist Gala, celebrating the work of the festival’s Young Artist cohort.

Another addition for 2026 is a new summer venue: the intimate, atmospheric church of Saxon origin, St Mary the Virgin, beside Waterperry House. The festival will present Living Light: Visions of an Abbess, space specific performance inspired by the music and writings of Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century abbess, composer, and polymath. Directed by the festival's Rebecca Meltzer, and rooted in Hildegard’s concept of the umbra viventis lucis - the reflection of the living Light - this immersive performance reflects Waterperry’s growing commitment to reimagining how vocal performance can be experienced. 

Full details from the festival website.

A new Elixir & first-time Bohemians: John Savournin announces his first season at Waterperry Opera Festival

Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore -  Oskar McCarthy as Dulcamara in 2021 - Waterperry Opera Festival

For John Savournin's first season as artistic director of Waterperry Opera Festival, the company will be performing Puccini's La Bohème and Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore as its main stage productions. Both works will be sung in English. La Bohème is receiving its first production at the Festival whilst they performed L'elisir d'amore in 2021 in a production by Dan Ayling [see my review].

The company aims to build on the success of its record-breaking 2025 season which saw unprecedented audience turnout and the Festival’s highest-ever selling main stage production.

La Bohème will be directed by Ruth Knight whose production of Handel's Rodelinda opened at Garsington Opera this summer [see my review]. Bertie Baigent, the Festival's co-founder and musical director, conducts with designs by Jennifer Gregory, who designed the 2025 production of Handel's Semele [see my review].

L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) see director John Wilkie returning to Waterperry for the third year, having directed Mozart's Don Giovanni in 2025 and Rossini's The Barber of Seville before that. L'elisir d'amore will reunite Wilkie with the creative team responsible for Don Giovanni, designer Ceci Calf and lighting designer Jake Wilshire. The conductor is Charlotte Politi.

The full 2026 programme, including family performances and further site-specific productions, will be announced in January. Priority booking will open in early March.

Further details from the Festival's website. 

Ravishing delight: Rebecca Meltzer tells the story of Handel's Semele with engaging clarity at Waterperry Opera with Hilary Cronin & Michael Lafferty

Handel: Semele - Hilary Cronin & ensemble - Waterperry Opera Festival (Photo: Jennifer Hawthorn)

Handel: Semele; Hilary Cronin, Michael Lafferty, Sophie Goldrrick, Nathan Mercieca, Sarah Winn, director: Rebecca Meltzer, conductor: Bertie Baigent, Waterperry Opera Festival; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 23 August 2025

A small-scale production with a big heart. Director Rebecca Meltzer tells the story with engaging clarity and benefits from Hilary Cronin charming and delighting in the title role

Having finished its summer performances in Oxfordshire, Waterperry Opera Festival made two guest appearances at Opera Holland Park bringing their new production of Handel's Semele. We caught the second, on 22 August 2025. The director was Rebecca Meltzer and conductor was Bertie Baigent with Hilary Cronin as Semele, Michael Lafferty as Jupiter, Sophie Goldrick as Juno, Nathan Mercieca as Athamas, Sarah Winn as Ino, Phil Wilcox as Cadmus, Louse Fuller as Iris, James Micklethwaite as Apollo and Masimba Ushe as Somnus and the High Priest. Designs were by Jennifer Gregory, lighting by Catja Hamilton and movement by Alexandria McCauley.

Meltzer's production took advantage of the full extent of the Opera Holland Park stage even adding a walkway across the middle of the pit. Most of the action was on the forestage with the main stage used for emphasis. Jennifer Gregory's designs were contemporary, the mortals dressed in shades of black, white and grey with clothes that might have come from Cos, whilst the immortals were in vivid colour with paint on their skin and graffiti-esque clothes.

Handel: Semele - Michael Lafferty, Hilary Cronin - Waterperry Opera Festival (Photo: Jennifer Hawthorn)

It was a tight and small cast, with many of the smaller roles being doubled with the chorus, but quick changes and clear delineation of costumes meant that there was never any confusion, and the choruses filled the space admirably. Bertie Baigent directed a small-ish band from the harpsichord, but even with a second harpsichord in the ensemble the instrument sounded undernourished and the cello was the main driver in the recitatives.

Musical Moves: Guy Verrall-Withers, co-founder and artistic director of Waterperry Opera Festival, becomes director of audiences & impact at The Grange Festival

Rebecca Meltzer, Bertie Baigent & Guy Verrall-Withers
with the Waterperry Opera Festival team in 2024

The arts administration world is relatively compact, which means that whenever someone moves there is a domino effect. The Grange Festival, riding on a high with record ticket sales, has announced that Guy     Verrall-Withers is joining in a new role, Director of Audiences & Impact. Which of course, means that Waterperry Opera Festival, which Verrall-Withers co-founded, is now seeking a new CEO.

The aim of Verrall-Withers' new role at The Grange Festival is to take 'strategic approach to audience development and public engagement, spearheading initiatives to expand the audience base and extend the Festival's reach'. 2025 is The Grange Festival's first season under new chief executive Tyler Stoops and the festival's diverse approach to programming, moving away from simply being an opera festival, has led to record ticket sales.

Guy Verrall-Withers is currently artistic director and CEO of Waterperry Opera Festival, and he will remain in that role until after Waterperry's 2025 season, joining The Grange Festival on a part-time basis until late August. Verrall-Withers co-founded Waterperry Opera Festival in 2017 with conductor Bertie Baigent and director Rebecca Meltzer, and both Baigent and Meltzer remain in place. Now in its 8th edition, performances take place outdoors in locations across the beautiful Waterperry Gardens and Waterperry has welcomed over 22,500 attendees since 2017, creating 36 productions while employing 600 artists.

The Grange Festival features new productions of La traviata and Die Fledermaus; the UK premiere of a new staging of Rameau’s Les Indes galantes; the return of Ballet Black in a double bill of contemporary ballet; concerts including Summertime Swing, Bernstein on Broadway, Queen at the Opera and a gala event in aid of The Meath Epilepsy Charity. The Grange Festival runs from 4 June to 6 July

Waterperry Opera Festival features new productions of Don Giovanni and Semele, Juliana Hall's A World Turned Upside Down: The Diary of Ann Frank, Winnie the Pooh's Songbook with the music of Harold Fraser-Simpson, Mozart's Gran Partita in concert, and a last night gala. Waterperry Opera Festival runs from 8-17 August 2025.

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, Waterperry Opera Festival promises a delightful and entertaining season all round! Tony Cooper reports

Audiences picnicking at Waterperry Opera (Photo Robert Workman, 2019)

Waterperry Opera Festival - celebrating its fifth anniversary this year - runs from Friday 12 to Saturday 20 August at their delightful home at Waterperry Gardens on the Waterperry Estate just a stone's-throw away from Oxford. Interestingly, the Gardens were established by the English horticulturist, Beatrix Havergal, in 1932. Here Ms Havergal ran a residential horticultural college for women and when she retired in 1971 the college shut down. A year later the School of Economic Science purchased the Waterperry Estate including Waterperry Gardens which it runs to generate revenue for the school.

In total there are eight rich fertile acres of landscaped ornamental gardens comprising an alpine garden, formal knot garden, herbaceous borders, riverside walk, rose garden and water-lily canal. There are also five acres of orchards and two collections of saxifrages which are accredited with ‘plant heritage’ under the National Plant Collection Scheme.

Seeking new grounds at Waterperry Opera Festival with their production Hansel and Gretel

Waterperry Opera Festival runs from 12 to 21 August 2021 at Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire. In this Guest Posting from the team at the festival, they explain how this year the festival team is working to welcome families and members of the deaf and hard of hearing community. 

Peter Rabbit's Musical Adventures at the 2019 Waterperry Opera Festival (Photo Robert Workman)

As an organisation, Waterperry Opera Festival is constantly seeking to explore new, innovative ways to engage with, produce, and perform opera, with the goal of making it relevant and accessible to diverse and varied audiences. Showcasing this is their family-friendly production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.

Their aim with this production is to produce high-quality opera in a bilingual format for Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Hearing audiences of all ages and backgrounds; by combining the visual storytelling of  British Sign Language (BSL) with the musical and dramatic world of Humperdinck's classic opera.

From Donizetti and Humperdinck to Messiaen: Waterperry Opera's imaginative plans for 2021 take full advantage of the spaces available

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte - Zoe Drummond, Damian Arnold, Nicholas Morton - Waterperry Opera Festival 2020

Sometimes smallness of size can be an advantage, making a small arts organisation rather more nippy than a larger one. Last year, in the face of the cancellation of their 2020 festival, Waterperry Opera created a mini-season which managed to fit in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, a work by Jonathan Dove and some Haydn string quartets, all within socially distanced guidelines thanks to cleverly re-locating the performances to more flexible spaces within Waterperry Gardens [see my review].

For 2021, the festival is continuing this flexible approach, with a total of seven productions utilising various spaces in the gardens. Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore will be staged on the lawn in front of Waterperry House, directed by Dan Ayling, designed by Ana Inés Jabares-Pita, and conducted by Bertie Baigent. Whilst Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel will, rather appropriately, be staged in the amospheric Waterperry woodlands, directed by Rebeccca Meltzer. This production will take a multidisciplinary approach to story-telling, and incorporate British Sign Language. Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf is being presented beside the waterlily pond with choreography by Julia Cave, combining music, dance and spoken word, and the production will be travelling to the Lichfield Festival.

Additionally to these, there will be a late-night music and light installation for Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. In collaboration with Oxford Lieder, Emma Doherty will be directing staged performances of song cycles by Lili Boulanger and RVW, and Meltzer's version of Jonathan Dove's Ariel (from the 2020 festival) returns.

The festival runs from 12 to 21 August 2021, full details from the festival website.