Spirit of place first: Nevill Holt, which I was visiting for the first time, is a beauty. There's an Oxford college look about the facades, from 13th century to more recent additions, a lawn on the hill gives splendid views over the Welland Valley, while gardens and catering rival Glyndebourne and Garsington.
Plus, most significantly, a purpose-built, RIBA award-winning 400-seater opera house in the handsome ironstone stable block (pictured below). All of these thanks to David Ross, an entrepreneur with a chequered history whose attention to detail is phenomenal. He bought the estate when the school which had been there before closed due to a sexual abuse scandal: the woody interior would be perfect for Britten's The Turn of the Screw, but that would seem too close to home.
Instead, this year, we had a frothy comedy, culinary opera buffa, Donizetti's Don Pasquale, in a distinguished collaboration with Opera North, furnishing a small chorus and an orchestra under the loving guidance of Jette Parker protégé Michael Papadopoulos. It makes a fine sound in the composer's last comic opera, with excellent solos, but in this space it's not quite idiomatic-buoyant.
Nor is Grant Doyle as the supposedly old man who disinherits his nephew and takes a young bride (the young man's girlfriend in disguise, pictured below in the portrait he's holding). Pasquale is supposed to be in his seventies; Doyle in his mid-fifties is perfectly marriageable, at least until he sports the daft wig which is one of the few strong gags in James Hurley's production. The buffo manner is a difficult thing to judge; Doyle tends to overdo it and blusters a bit vocally.
The opera world these days loves to set Italian comic opera in the 1950s or 1960s, often connecting it to Cinecittà style. Hurley's programme article alerted me to the films of Antonio Pietroangeli, a contemporary of Fellini, whose subjects, he tells us, often deal with women trying to make their way in a male-dominated society. Though Elliot Squire's malleable sets, chiming well with the interior, and costumes inject style, it still feels like an optional extra. But it's true that Norina has plenty of independent spirit, and Harriet Eyley eases into the role with bags of charm and vivacity.
Her lover is, if anything, even better, a standout from the start as the ideal Italianate tenor, a real name to watch: Aaron Godfrey-Mayes, a recent graduate of Hamburg Opera's Opernstudio who's just sung Tamino there. The duet of Norina and Ernesto in the inspired third act, even if played out to a spying Pasquale, is a limpid beauty, and everything around it zings here. To complete the youth team, Henry Neill has the perfect confidence and resonance. He made a huge impact as both Sam and Junior in the Royal Opera's Bernstein Trouble in Tahiti/A Quiet Place, and we'll be hearing much more of him too.
The slimline chorus fill various small cameos and excel in their late-arriving, brilliant set piece. Go, even if it requires some effort by train (one hour from St Pancras, and of course Sunday posed a mighty struggle through Arsenal crowds packing tubes) and taxi - a word of praise for friendly Ryszard, one of the four Poles who run a cab company in Market Harborough. I only mention it because such excursions have to be the total package. This was part of the pleasure, and it has to be noted that the peonies in the gardens are absolutely spectacular right now
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