Artiste: Ilona Domnich

James Conway’s production of La bohème may be a little restrained on banter, but hits all the emotional high notes, is compellingly played and superbly sung. 

Rapturously romantic, intimate, moving, unforgettable: more English summer opera should be like Iford. And the garden is like Narnia in the spring. 

Eugene Onegin, a lyric opera by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, is based on Pushkin’s novel of the same name, converted into an operatic libretto by Konstantin Shilovsky. It tells the tale of a selfish hero, Onegin, who rejects the outburst of love from the young Tatyana and instead flirts with her older sister, Olga, who is engaged to his best friend, Lensky. This leads to a duel, in which Lensky is killed.