Bernard Davies

Grange Park Opera

Only 23 miles from London by the Surrey Hills, Grange Park Opera has become one of the major summer opera festivals in Europe. Founded in 1998 by Wasfi Kani OBE, the company has staged more than 50 operas, including the acclaimed productions of Rusalka, Tristan und Isolde, Peter Grimes, and Fiddler on the Roof with Bryn Terfel at the BBC Proms. On the list for the 2023 season is Puccini's Tosca, Massenet's Werther and Wagner's epic Tristan und Isolde. Productions take place at the Theatre in the Woods, a new five-tier opera house based on Milan's La Scala. The audience – invariably, but not exclusively in black tie and cocktail dresses – arrive in the afternoon, have a glass of champagne at The White Wisteria Champagne Bar, and then explore the grounds of the Tudor house which was lived in by Mary, Duchess of Roxburghe, until her death in 2014. In the convivial long interval, the audience settles into the two restaurants – either inside the 15th-century house, in picnic pavilions in the Crinkle-Crankle garden, on the Croquet Lawn, or in the Rose Parterre. Then there are those that just fling their rugs, unfold picnic furniture and have a feast in the orchard, under the mulberry, damson, apple and pear trees.