England's legendary country house opera season is yet another victim of the COVID-19 crisis. From internationally-acclaimed productions at Glyndbourne and Longborough's renowned Wagner interpretations, to many small, humbler efforts, everyone got shut down this year. As prohibitions loosened some outdoor performances became possible, and while full operas couldn't be rehearsed and organised (or made to break even) in the circumstances, venues sprang into action to take advantage of any opportunity they could.
Our nearest, West Green House near Hartley Witney, Hampshire, managed to whip up a six-concert summer season in August and September, of which we took in the last: Mozart in Love.
It's hard to overstate just how glorious is was to hear live music again, surrounded by the soft murmur of an appreciative crowd. Even if that music was limited to one singer and a pianist, and the pre-booked attendees had been channeled into appropriately sized boxes chalked onto the lawns, socially distanced from their neighbours.
Soloist Kirsty Hopkins (who also co-developed and directed the whole series) delivered an hour-long programme of 10 of Mozart's best soprano arias, from the heart-wrenchingly poignant Dove Sono I Bei Momenti to the enraged passion of Ah. Chi mi Dice Mai! Each came with anecdotes and back stories from Hopkins, adding context to the simple but powerful performance. She returned with an encore of the Alleluia from the Exsultate Jubilate, the music we used for the registry signing at our marriage. It always turns both our knees to jelly, but was particularly powerful in this rare event for 2020, just days before our anniversary, with the sun shining and swans gliding across the nearby lake.
With gates opening at 11am, music at noon and the ability to linger in the gardens until 4pm, the concert series allowed for one of the raisons d'etre of country house opera: elegant picnics. We were actually slumming it a bit, as many others had shown up with tables, cloths and full place settings, while we made due with plates on laps. But I'd wager our bbq chicken, arancini, barley salad and lime tarts were on par with anyone else's culinary efforts.
Of all the country house opera venues I've explored, West Green has the finest garden. (Yes, better even than Glyndbourne.) That's probably because opera here is a recent addition to venerable and well known horticultural efforts. At its heart is an enormous Victorian walled garden, with outlying paths, a lake, water features and follies. It's not a big place, but one where thoughtful design has given every section impact and clever vistas and borrowed landscape make it seem larger. Its most distinctive feature, however, is a light-hearted sense of humour.
Vegetables grow side-by-side with flowers. The palatial chicken coop has an Imperial Chinese theme, including willow-pattern water bowls.
A section of grassy mounds along a pathway looks like a recently-abandoned hobbit village. Classical portrait busts lurk at ground level amongst the greenery.
Most amusingly, if you’re made aware of the joke or if your Latin is particularly good, there’s a column with a Latin inscription noting “this monument was built with a great deal of money which otherwise someday would have been given into the hands of the tax collector.”
The snarl against excessive inheritance tax came from former owner Alistair McAlpine, a Tory grandee in the 1980s responsible for the initial renovation of the garden. These days credit goes to Marylyn Abbott, an Australian immigrant who’s both a keen gardener and the former marketing manager of the Sydney Opera House. It’s she who started the opera tradition here.
Both leased the house from the National Trust, which still owns the place and allows members into the gardens for free. (Others £9 and extra charges for events, of course.) It’s not the typical NT property, however. The lovely, Georgian brick house isn’t open to the public and is relatively modest in size, more like the places you see for sale in Country Life than the sprawling historic piles of the tourist trail. The Abbotts are regularly present for events and take a very personal hand in running the place. This also means there’s a more creative run of events than the usual NT property, with apple festivals, a car show, craft workshops and Christmas illuminations all on offer later this year.
If COVID-19 allows, of course...
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