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Ambition has never been wanting at Grange Park Opera. This, after all, is the company that found itself unexpectedly homeless and responded by building a splendid new opera house from scratch in the grounds of a Grade I listed manor house just outside London in less than two years.
The vista may not be as impressive as the wooded valley at its original venue in Hampshire, or the gardens as beautiful as at Glyndebourne, but Grange Park Opera at West Horsley is easy to get to and well appointed. The opera house itself, a sort of miniature La Scala, remains a minor marvel.
The artistic programming keeps setting new goals. This year sees a ballet gala for the first time. Next year will bring Das Rheingold, the first instalment in a new production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen over four years.
Each summer the company likes to field a big star, and 2025 is headlined by Simon Keenlyside taking the title role in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, the first of the season’s four operas. He has the authority, the weight of voice and the experience to make a strong fist of the role. At 65, his voice hardly seems to have aged and he is never constrained into holding back, though some Italian baritones, with a native feel for the words and shaping vocal lines, have shown there are alternatives to all-out fervour.
Around him is a production originally by director David Pountney for Welsh National Opera in 1997, revived here by Robin Tebbutt. Its minimalist look has not aged badly, especially now financial problems are pushing companies into doing more for less, and striking lighting and projections create a potent atmosphere in this, the darkest of Verdi’s mature operas. There is also a lot of old-fashioned arm-waving — either impossibly antediluvian, or a welcome return to the kind of acting the composer himself might have expected, according to taste.
In the theatre’s very fine acoustics, the cast as a whole comes over strongly. James Creswell fields a notably forceful bass voice as the implacable patrician Jacopo Fiesco, sinking low notes deep as a ship’s anchor. Elin Pritchard combines vulnerability and inner strength, making her Amelia Grimaldi more than the passive character she often is, and the shining soprano tone fits well. Tenor Otar Jorjikia offers oodles of Italianate passion and a fair degree of style as Gabriele Adorno, with Jolyon Loy and David Shipley, as Paolo and Pietro, in sturdy support.
The opera is performed in the standard, revised version of 1881, conducted with clean-cut rhythmic drive by Gianluca Marciano, though it is a shame the Gascoigne Orchestra is not able to field a greater range or depth of colour. Other productions of Simon Boccanegra have probed deeper into the opera’s characters and come closer to the ideal of Verdi style, but this is a more than decent opening to Grange Park Opera’s season.
★★★★☆
To July 11, grangeparkopera.co.uk
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