Grange Park Opera

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Grange Park Opera is a professional opera company based in Hampshire, England. The company was founded in 1997 by Wasfi Kani, OBE and presents an annual summer opera festival during the months of June and July.^[1] The festival initially featured three fully staged productions but has since expanded to five. Its newly built award-winning theatre on the grounds of the Northington Grange estate is concealed within an original Greek revival temple and can seat up to 530 people.

Each year, one production moves to a purpose built theatre within Nevill Holt Hall a 15th Century house, near Market Harborough in Leicestershire. The Nevill Holt production features performers who are part of the company's Young Artists Program. The same production is then toured in the Autumn by Grange Park's touring company, Pimlico Opera.

Notable singers who have performed with the company include Bryn Terfel, Cynthia Makris, and Anne Sophie Duprels among others. The company has also featured other notable artists like ballet dancer Mara Galeazzi.^[2]

In the 2008 season, the company will mount productions of Verdi's Falstaff, Puccini's La Fanciulla del West, Dvořák's Rusalka, Kit Hesketh-Harvey's adaptation of Bluebeard, and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.^[3]

[edit] See also

• List of opera festivals
• Country house opera

[edit] References

1. ^ Grange Park Opera, Opera & Music Theatre Forum Ltd.
2. ^ Grange Park Opera official web site
3. ^ Grange Park Opera official web site

• Tom Sutcliffe, To the manor sung, The Evening Standard, June 1, 2001. Retrieved via subscription 2 June 2008.
• Rupert Christiansen, Ugly opera, winning performance, The Daily Telegraph, June 6, 2007. Retrieved 2 June 2008.
• Rupert Christiansen, The house that Wasfi built, The Daily Telegraph, June 3, 2002. Retrieved 2 June 2008.
• Graham Topping, What Wasfi did next Oxford Today, Volume 18 Number 3, June 2006. Retrieved 2 June 2008.