Rossini's Le Comte Ory
Garsington Opera, founded in 1989 by the late Leonard Ingrams and his wife Rosalind, began to explore neglected works of first-class composers and latterly of Russian and Czech composers which has awakened critical interest and established a reputation that has grown not only nationally but internationally.  It promotes young British talent by providing a  platform for those just beginning to make their name on the world-wide opera stage and a number of notable UK debuts have taken place.

PMF involvement:

June 2001 Rossini's La Gazzetta
June 2002 Rossini's La Gazza Ladra, subsequently recorded in English as The Thieving Magpie for the Chandos Opera in English label).
June 2004 Rossini's L’equivoco stravagante
June 2005 Rossini's Le Comte Ory
June 2006 Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mayskaya Noch (May Night).
The cast included PMF Scholars Antonia Sotgiu and Darren Jeffery.
Rossini's Le Comte Ory

The Independent

‘Rupert Goold's wonderfully witty, cheeky and detailed Garsington staging came fabulously alive. The artistic director of Northampton's Royal Theatre, Goold is one of our most daring young directorial talents, and a great find for Garsington. To help you to visualise it: an array of four-poster beds, with hot-blooded young crusaders' wives hunched like Lysistrata and her coterie in reluctant self-imposed purdah, sex oozing from every pore, watched over by a mother- superior figure (Anne-Marie Owens in rich voice, conjuring up memories of Berlioz's Cassandre). And into this cage aux folles pours a bevy of blokes like pantomime dames in drag, out on the razzle. Lowest- denominator comedy, but a sure-fire hoot.
Garsington's male and female choruses - Rossini works in loads of them - were simply stupendous: punchy, witty and impeccably rehearsed. They flowed, rather as the absinthe-and-grenadine cocktails did. Superb, too, were the orchestral strings - warm, full-blooded, with strength in depth yet, thanks to adroit controlling from seasoned Rossinian David Parry, not once overbearing.’

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mayskaya Noch

The Independent on Sunday

‘The delicate charms of Rimsky-Korsakov's magic-realist romantic comedy Mayskaya Noch are given a miraculous boost in Olivia Fuchs's new production for Garsington Opera. Beautifully directed, ingeniously designed by Jamie Vartan, well-sung from top to bottom, and played with great smoothness and tenderness by the orchestra under Elgar Howarth, it is quite the best production I have seen from this company... Mayskaya Noch is more than worth the trip.’