Grange Park Opera

Founded in 1997, Hampshire’s Grange Park Opera has quickly established a reputation for its excellent productions of familiar favourites and less well-known works. A visit to the opera is an ideal opportunity for a long-weekend break, and the Pink House Bed & Breakfast is less than ten miles away.

The Grange Park Opera’s annual season runs from June to July. This is no ordinary opera house: the opera’s 530-seat theatre is housed in the former orangery of the Grange, one of the best surviving examples of a nineteenth century Greek revival house in the whole of Europe.

Once the home of the Baring family, the house is set in beautiful parklands, which are opened for ticket-holders to explore around two hours before performances begin. The 100-minute long intervals are a further invitation to make the most of the elegant surroundings, and picnic places in the marquee or in a private Indian pavilion may be booked in advanced. Alternatively, reserve a place fir dinner in the house itself — beneath beautiful chandeliers and trompe l’oeil hangings by the contemporary artist and Winchester College graduate Alexander Creswell.

Described as “a little glory of the English landscape” by the Daily Telegraph and “fabulously stylish” by the Independent on Sunday, the Grange Park season has become a firm fixture of the operatic calendar — “a festival of remarkable distinction and individuality” (Sunday Times). According to the Sunday Telegraph, “there is nothing like it on this side of Arcadia”.

Recent productions include The Gambler (Prokofiev), The Magic Flute (Mozart), Falstaff (Verdi), Thais (Massenet), South Pacific (Rogers & Hammerstein), La bohème (Puccini) and The Elixir of Love (Donizetti).

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