UK Summer Opera
Glyndebourne
Lewes, Sussex, 19 May – 27 August
Web: glyndebourne.com
It started life nigh on nine decades ago as a ‘house for Mozart’, and to the philandering Don Giovanni falls the first night of Glyndebourne 2023.
The Don receives a new production by Mariame Clément with Evan Rogister, the principal conductor of Washington National Opera, in the pit. And Mozart’s nobleman isn’t the only reprobate bestriding the East Sussex stage. Designed by David Hockney,
John Cox’s venerable 1975 production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress returns, conducted by Glyndebourne’s music director Robin Ticciati. Lockdown put paid to its intended revival in 2020, and another refugee from that ill-starred summer, Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites – also conducted by Ticciati – is finally welcomed into the fold. A Glyndebourne first, it includes Sally Matthews as the redoubtable Blanche de la Force. Completing the line-up are Handel’s Semele, Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore and another Glyndebourne classic: Peter Hall’s 1981 staging of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Longborough Festival Opera
Moreton-in-marsh, Gloucestershire, 29 May – 3 August
Web: lfo.org.uk
Perhaps it’s stretching a point to dub Longborough the Cotswolds’ answer to Bayreuth, but with 2023’s Götterdämmerung in prospect, the last link of the festival’s second complete Wagner Ring cycle is forged – all four operas to be brought together next summer. And in conductor Anthony Negus it boasts the services of arguably the UK’S finest Wagnerian. With the period instruments of La Serenissima underpinning Monteverdi’s L’orfeo,a new arrangement of Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen and the uncorking of Donizetti’s L’élisir d’amore, it’s not just fans of Wagner destined for a treat.
Opera Holland Park
London, 30 May – 12 August
Web: operahollandpark.com
London’s operatic ‘summer in the city’ means business, what with five new productions including the world premiere of a specially commissioned opera from Jonathan Dove. Based on novels by Simon Mayo, Itch is the story of a geeky obsessive inadvertently caught up in a nail-biting mission to save the world. It’s conducted by Stephen Barlow who presided over the company’s previous staging of Dove’s Flight. Also cleared for take-off in the 2023 edition are Verdi’s Rigoletto, Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Puccini’s La bohème and Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore.
Garsington Opera
Wormsley Estate, Buckinghamshire, 31 May – 22 July
Web: garsingtonopera.org
Transporting Rossini’s comic masterpiece to 1930’s Seville, Christopher Luscombe’s production of The Barber of Seville bestows a twinkle on the first of four operas gracing Wormsley’s bespoke lakeside pavilion this year. There’s a rarity too: the 14-yearold Mozart’s Mitridate conducted by Clemens Schuldt. Bruno Ravella’s
Rosenkavalier was one of the highlights of the 2021 season and he returns to direct more Richard Strauss: the riotous conflation of high art, burlesque and bruised egos that is Ariadne auf Naxos. Natalya Romaniw takes the role of the hapless Ariadne.
Nevill Holt Opera
Market Harborough, Leicestershire, 31 May – 28 June
Web: www.nevillholtopera.co.uk
Nevill Holt might have added a winter festival to its roll call of enticements last year, but summer is when the al fresco sculptures and stylish purpose-built opera house come into their own. From comedy to verismo, Italy is in the driving seat as Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi go head-to-head in a double bill conducted by artistic director Nicholas Chalmers. Wrapping things up is Rossini’s Cinderella in a new production by Owen Horsley.
The Grange Festival
Alresford, Hampshire, 8 June – 2 July
Web: www.thegrangefestival.co.uk
Cynically put to the test, love is in the Hampshire air. Don Alfonso’s worldlywise scepticism drives the not-quite comedy of Mozart’s Così fan tutte which opens the season. Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, meanwhile, channel a double bill overshadowed by death: Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. To end, there’s all to play for as Paul Daniel conducts Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades. Eduard Martynyuk is Herman, with Josephine Barstow as the Countess.
Grange Park Opera
West Horsley Place, Surrey 8 June – 13 July
Web: grangeparkopera.co.uk
From Indian pavilions to crinkle-crankle walled garden, and an opera house that is modelled on La Scala Milan, ‘home’ to Grange Park Opera is a place bathed in bosky enchantment. Not that there’s anything peaceful about the impassioned relationships baked into a season that unites Puccini’s Tosca, Massenet’s Werther and, raising the curtain, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Gwyn Hughes Jones and Rachel Nicholls take the title roles in the latter which is conducted by Stephen Barlow and directed by Charles Edwards.
Bampton Classical Opera
Bampton, Oxfordshire, 21 July – 13 September
Web: bamptonopera.org
For 30 years, Bampton has been championing the 18th century’s less familiar operatic fare, and as birthday candles are metaphorically extinguished, Salieri’s 1772 hit La fiera di Venezia is given its probable UK premiere. Thomas Blunt conducts a production by Jeremy Gray which also fetches up at St John’s Smith Square, London, in September.
Dorset Opera Festival
Bryanston, Dorset, 25-29 July
Web: dorsetopera.com
As the summer school readies itself for next year’s half-century edition, Mozart returns to Bryanston, where Figaro and Susanna are bent on outwitting their libidinous master. The Marriage of Figaro is paired with Massenet’s five-act take on love and loss: Le roi de Lahore.
Waterperry Opera
Waterperry House, Oxfordshire, 11-20 August
Web: waterperryoperafestival.co.uk
From small beginnings, Waterperry has flourished and musters no fewer than eight productions – among them an unlikely encounter between Haydn and Peter Rabbit, and Paul Patterson’s Roald Dahl-inspired take on ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and ‘The Three Little Pigs’. Headlining the summer is Bizet’s Carmen conducted by Bertie Baigent; and there are two outings for Judith Weir’s solo soprano tour de force, King Harald’s Saga.
IF Opera
Belcombe Court, Bradford-on-avon, 24 August – 16 September
Web: ifopera.com
If Giordano’s Fedora, a steamy tale of murder, adultery and revenge, looks a leftfield choice for country house opera, it’s coincidentally scheduled for La Scala and the Met this season. And IF Opera can look to the example of Opera Holland Park, which has long championed the byways of Italian verismo. Elsewhere, Iolanta sees the light (literally) at Wiltshire Music Centre, while Will Todd’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is staged in Belcombe’s elegant gardens.