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A handbag? Jack Furness’ uproarious new production of Gerald Barry’s irreverent take Oscar Wilde bares some very sharp teeth. 

Laurence Cummings and John Caird’s second Garsington exploration of the operas of Monteverdi brims with wonderfully playing and singing in an attractive setting.

Bruno Ravella's splendid 2021 production of Strauss' opera of Viennese manners returns with a fine cast. 

Music Director Douglas Boyd conducts a performance of exceptional musical quality, and Louisa Muller's uncontroversial but passionate direction makes this Traviata one for the ages.

Simple solutions prove the best in Beethoven's "problem" opera as John Cox's staging is revived at Garsington.

Ruth Knight untangles Handel's Rodelinda, directing a new staging at Garsington which features a feast of fine singing. 

Jack Furness directs a terrific new Queen of Spades at Garsington – haunting and harrowing. 

Simon Higlett’s exquisite sets and costumes give a backdrop to Donizetti’s frothiest of rom-coms.

Christopher Alden, Chris Hopkins and an excellent cast send us a comic roller coaster ride with Verdi’s ultra-rarely performed second opera.

In the first and last acts, ladies entered with a train still attached to a bolt of cloth, which was then cut to length by an attendant. Was this production brought to the stage in a great hurry, allowing no time for costume fittings? 

A superb orchestral performance from Paul Agnew and The English Concert lights up a breezy and fun staging of Rameau's ballet bouffon.

Paul Curran’s 2019 production is revived with some flair by Rosie Purdie, with a fine cast led by Pumeza Matshikiza.

An excellent singing cast combine with Bruno Ravella's sensitive direction and brilliant orchestral playing to bring to life Strauss' heady mix of farce and high art.

Robert Murray excels as the eponymous king in the opera seria that cemented the 14-year old Mozart’s position as the next big thing. 

Come for the shave, stay for the comedy. Christopher Luscombe's new production of Rossini's beloved opera buffa avoids overcomplicating the plot, letting the work's humour and the abilities of the principals shine. 

Louisa Muller returns to revive her 2019 production, preserving the ambiguity – did the Governess see these things or imagine them? 

It's taken two years for Jack Furness' new production of Dvořák's greatest opera to reach the Garsington stage, but it is entirely worth the wait, with a breathtaking performance from Natalya Romaniw in the title role.

Laurence Cummings and The English Concert deliver musical excellence in a wonderfully designed and choreographed production.

Garsington Opera's new production of Rossini's comic masterpiece is a bawdy hoot, but humour aside it features an ensemble who provide first-class bel canto singing.

Outstanding singing from a beautifully chosen cast led by Miah Persson and Hanna Hipp. 

The Philharmonia and Garsington Chorus deliver great performances, as do Natalia Tanasii and Fleur Barron as the two Larina sisters.

Peter Mumford's intelligent staging concept and a knockout performance by a reduced Philharmonia Orchestra made this a night to remember.

Director Louisa Muller overcomes the problems of opening a ghost story in natural daylight to deliver plenty of operatic chills. 

As a hybrid of brilliance and disappointment, this Don Giovanni is in a class of its own.

Natalya Romaniw is a natural as our maligned heroine: Paul Curran creates staging of bewildering comic complexity and pulls it off with panache.

Tough, thrilling, ambitious and new: The Skating Rink is an exciting new major commission by Garsington, and its world première delivered on every level.

Bruno Ravella's fast-paced Falstaff for Garsington still has crucial space for pathos amid the comedy, with a notably subtle central performance from Henry Waddington.  

An affirmation of the importance of cultural values in the face of the abyss, or Richard Strauss fiddling while Europe burnt? Tim Albery's production leaves it to us to decide.

A twist on the usual Enlightenment path, this is an admirable production, excellently executed.

Garsington's latest Rossini buffa is on the nail orchestrally, mixed vocally and one of the best pieces of acting and stage movement you'll see in opera.

Debussy’s opera of half-lights succeeds in taming the glare of the midsummer sun in Garsington’s new staging.

A slick production from the Garsington Opera Company, who use the location of the Wormley Estate to their full advantage. 

On a golden afternoon on the Wormsley estate, not everything on stage necessarily glittered, but there’s plenty of spirit in Annilese Miskimmon's production to entertain.

A verdant and heavenly setting for The Creation

Mozart's messy monster of an opera gets a brutalist tidy-up at Garsington, but the determinedly straightforward reading only makes this work's innate problems more obvious. 

The away leg of Rossini's “Italian girl - Turkish guy” fixture makes for a thoroughly enjoyable evening at Garsington, without ever quite bursting into flame.

Michael Boyd's stylish new production is broadly traditional, apart from beyond-the-grave appearances by Lensky. 

Garsington’s first collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company married an abridgement of Shakespeare’s play with Mendelssohn’s incidental music, a union which promised much but which stumbled awkwardly.

Britten’s final opera given an impressively atmospheric staging, ideally conceived for the small venue

At Garsington Opera, Richard Strauss' Intermezzo presents an utterly compelling picture of a mature marriage with its joys and trials; Mary Dunleavy brings it to life with a top class piece of acting.

Weddings bring out the cynic in me. They also bring out the cynic in Don Alfonso and it’s at a wedding breakfast that John Fulljames sets his production of Così fan tutte. 

A suitably rustic account of Janáček’s tale: seductive, engaging, and with a sense of intimacy ideal for this small venue.

Vert-Vert, undoubtedly the only opera named after a dead parrot, is a very, very silly opera – more a series of comic sketches than an integrated work. But in Garsington's production, everything delights.

Garsington Opera takes a comedic approach to Beethoven's Fidelio. The result is amusing and musically strong, but lacking in both dynamic staging and emotional depth.

The story of Hansel and Gretel is at least 200 years old – the Brothers Grimm, those avid collectors of German folklore, first published it in 1812. And this well-loved tale’s longevity is something that Garsington Opera’s new production draws attention to from the outset. During the overture, a group of shadowy figures drop pages from a book, which Hansel and Gretel collect with glee.

A great number of works from the bel canto era and before have not found their way into the current operatic repertoire, generally for good reason: many are flawed, dated or just not particularly distinguished. Garsington Opera have just proved to us that Rossini’s Maometto Secondo is not one of those.

Those who feel that country house opera is in some way not the real thing, just an excuse to dress up and picnic on manicured lawns, should hie to Garsington’s new Die Entführung aus dem Serail with all speed.

The West End/Broadway musical is alive and well, raking in millions with its blend of light music, song and dance routines and not-too-taxing drama. But its spiritual ancestor, the operetta, is an unfashionable beast.

Although I never had the pleasure of attending Garsington Opera in its original setting in Garsington Manor, I was very impressed by their new premises at Wormsley, Buckinghamshire, with their spectacular-looking and also comfortable opera pavilion.