Grange Park Opera

The Grange, showing the theatre (left) and main house (right)

Grange Park Opera is a professional opera company whose base is The Grange in Northington, Hampshire, England. The company was founded in 1998 by Wasfi Kani, OBE and Michael Moody. It stages an annual opera festival in the months of June and July in an award-winning theatre seating 550 people, contained within a Greek revival temple.

The repertory has a focus on large-scale romantic opera and Wagner. However, rare operas are also regularly performed, as well as musicals.[1] The English Chamber Orchestra is the resident orchestra.[2] Notable singers who have performed with the company include Bryn Terfel, Claire Rutter, Susan Gritton, Wynne Evans, Philip Langridge, Andrew Kennedy, Roddy Williams, Colin Lee, Sally Matthews, Emma Bell, Alfie Boe, Robert Poulton, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts and Anne Sophie Duprels. The festival has included non-operatic events including Mara Galeazzi with dancers from the Royal Ballet, an evening with Ray Davies, London Symphony Orchestra, Ballet Boyz, Harry the Piano, Kit & the Widow, Boy Blue, Henry Armburg Jennings Big Band, and the orchestra of Welsh National Opera in a concert performance of The Flying Dutchman.

A sister company, Pimlico Opera, works in prisons and with younger artists.

History

The Orangery containing the theatre

In 1998, the founders of Grange Park Opera leased The Grange, Northington from Lord and Lady Ashburton, who became the patrons.[3] The four festivals from 1998 to 2001 took place in the Orangery, into which the opera company had fitted a raked seating structure, stage and orchestra pit. There was no space for wings so singers would use a scaffolding "wrap around" to enable them to leave stage left and appear stage right. This theatre seated 360, using seats discarded from the refurbished Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.[3]

The auditorium was then rebuilt and expanded in time to re-open for the 2002 season.[4] The capacity increased to 550,[5] again re-using Royal Opera House seating.[4] Its horseshoe shape,[5] with boxes, follows the design of the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, which was built by William Wilkins,[6] the architect who first applied the Greek Revival style to The Grange.[3] The new theatre has wings, and a larger stage and orchestra pit. In the main house, the opera company has created a dining salon,[6] and basement-level dressing rooms.[3]

From the production of one opera in 1998, the festival expanded to three in 2000, over a five week season,[2] and to four operas in 2013 over seven weeks.[5] From 2003 until 2012,[7][8] an extension to the season ran at Nevill Holt near Market Harborough in Leicestershire, in a 300-seat theatre concealed within a 17th-century stable courtyard,[9] for which each year Grange Park Opera provided one opera production.[10]

Performance history non-standard repertoire

In addition to many operas which are part of the current repertoire, the company has included some more unusual fare:

Under-35s schemes

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ White, Michael. "Small opera house boss likes to think big ", Hampstead & Highgate Express (London), 2 May 2013. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Reynolds, Mike. "The irresistible rise of Grange Park Opera", MusicalCriticism.com, 11 May 2012. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Deitz, Paula. "Midsummer Night's Idyll: Opera in the Orangery", The New York Times 23 May 1999. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Clements, Andrew. Anything Goes, The Guardian (London), 17 June 2002. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Reynolds, Mike. Wasfi Kani in Conversation and Grange Park Opera's 2013 Season, MusicalCriticism.com 10 May 2013. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Christiansen, Rupert. "The house that Wasfi built", The Daily Telegraph (London), 3 June 2002. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  7. ↑ Vorasarun, Chaniga. "Opera Man", Forbes, 3 July 2008. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  8. ↑ Blackwell, Alex (14 June 2014). "Plans revealed for permanent Nevill Holt theatre". Harborough Mail. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
  9. ↑ Opera at Nevill Holt, Grange Park Opera website
  10. ↑ Kimberley, Nick. "Best garden operas in London", London Evening Standard, 19 May 2010. Retrieved 21 July 2013.
  11. ↑ George Hall, "Fortunio - Review", The Guardian (London), 11 July 20913
  12. ↑ Rupert Christiansen, "The Carmelites, review", The Telegraph (London), 19 July 2013
  13. ↑ Under 35s schemes, Grange Park Opera website

Further reading

External links