Garsington Opera
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Garsington Opera is an open air opera festival held each summer in the gardens of Garsington Manor, in the village of Garsington, near Oxford, England.
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[edit] Opera at Garsington
In 1982, Leonard Ingrams and his wife Rosalind bought Garsington Manor and quickly realised the opportunities it offered for outdoor performance. In 1989 English Touring Opera performed Le nozze di Figaro there and in 1990 Garsington Opera was launched.
Beginning with the Cosi fan tutte and the British premiere of Haydn's Orlando paladino, the characteristic feature of the programming at Garsinngton has been the successful combination of well known operas with discoveries of little known works. These have included significant British premieres of Richard Strauss’s Die ägyptische Helena, Rossini’s La gazzetta, L'equivoco stravagante and the first British professional productions of Haydn’s La vera costanza, Richard Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae, Janácek’s Šárka and Tchaikovsky's Cherevichki.
The family became well-known for organizing this annual season of opera in the manor gardens, and also for letting the local Amateur Dramatics Society and the Church use the grounds. Leonard Ingrams died after a heart attack on 27 July 2005 at the age of 63. His surviving brother is Richard Ingrams, the founder of Private Eye.
As announced in November 2005, the Garsington Opera will continue following the appointment of Anthony Whitworth-Jones as General Director. Rosalind Ingrams (Leonard’s widow) has become President, her daughter Catherine Ingrams has joined the Board.
Anthony Whitworth-Jones was General Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera for from 1989 to 1998 and of the Dallas Opera from 2000 to 2002. As Whitworth-Jones noted upon taking over the company, “under Leonard Ingrams’ passionate leadership, (it) has established a reputation for musical excellence, the presentation of some fascinating operatic rarities and the promotion of young singers. I will try to uphold and develop this tradition”
[edit] The theatre at Garsington Manor
Initially offering programmes in an adjacent barn, performances are now given in a purpose-built auditorium seating around five hundred, and the audience benefits from an exceptional natural acoustic with excellent sight-lines with the stage partly covered but open to the gardens behind. The barn is now used for an annual series of chamber music concerts.
