Opera & Concerts

Garsington Opera runs for a month in the summer in the idyllic setting of Garsington Manor, made famous in the Bloomsbury era. The combination of music, gardens and the unusual repertoire has established it as a much loved event in the English music calendar.

The Stowe Opera Company has recently performed Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky, Rusalka by Antonin Dvorak, Verdi's Don Carlos, Humperdinck's charming masterpiece opera "Hansel and Gretel", and last year we presented compelling performances of Bizet's 'Carmen'.

Stanley Hall Opera was started in 2001 with the aim of creating one entirely new production each year and staging it for one week in a midsummer season based around St. John’s Day. The company aims to give promising young singers and instrumentalists the opportunity to work together, and to benefit from working with experienced professionals, over an extended rehearsal period.

We provide a variety of operatic acts which you can learn more about by following the links to the left. From Singing Waiters to The Singing Policemen our performers inflitrate your event during the course of the evening before revealing their cover by bursting into song. Opera on the Run also produces full length theatre shows, including The Perfect Picnic, Spaghetti Opera and the new production of Turning Heads which is touring in the Autumn of 2008. All shows are conceived and written by Opera on the Run.

The Opera House at Longborough seats almost 500 and an orchestra pit accommodating 65 players. It is built in the grounds of our house on the edge of the Cotswold village of Longborough with views across the Evenlode Valley, and has been included in the latest Pevsner guide to buildings in England. Evening performances usually start at 6.30pm and have a 90 minute interval for picnicking in the grounds or dining in the popular LFO restaurant. There are also facilities for private dining and corporate entertaining.

Diva Opera, Britain’s foremost chamber opera company, was founded by Anne Marabini Young and Bryan Evans in 1996. During the past eleven years the company has produced more than forty different operas and has performed in Festivals, theatres and for charities throughout Great Britain, the Channel Islands, France, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Greece, Slovenia, Japan and Italy; including a performance of La Cenerentola at Teatro La Fenice in Venice in 2004.