S INCE 1998
Enterprise
“West Horsley Place is a glorious sprawling ancient house, grand but welcoming” JOANNA LUMLEY, APPEAL PATRON
‘Grange Park Opera continues its unstoppable progress.’ THE OBSERVER
GR ANGE PARK OPER A . . . . . . IN THE SURREY HILLS IN LES S THAN T WO DEC ADES , Grange Park Opera has established itself as
one of Europe’s leading opera festivals and become synonymous not only with artistic excellence, but the warmth of the relationship shared between loyal audiences, supporters and artists. Not without reason has it become known in the opera world as ‘a small jewel with big performances’. From June 2017 the festival moves to West Horsley Place, a 350 acre estate, recently inherited by author Bamber Gascoigne. West Horsley Place is a Surrey demi-Eden: a glorious sprawling 15th century house surrounded by formal gardens with secret corners, aged trees, box hedges and a majestic crinkle crankle wall. Behind the house, an ancient orchard opens into a glade, the setting for our new opera house: The Theatre in the Woods. The creation of a four-tier opera house modelled on La Scala, Milan, is probably the most thrilling thing happening in UK opera today and our 99-year lease at West Horsley Place means a permanent home for Grange Park Opera. Between November 2015 and August 2016, £6.4m of the £10m target had been achieved. Set within the Surrey Hills, we are 23 miles from London. Horsley Station is just one mile away with trains from Waterloo, Vauxhall, Clapham Junction (45 mins 4 trains/hour). Woking Station is 8 miles away (25 mins 8 trains/hour). A shuttle will be in operation and there will be a later start time. Grange Park Opera’s unexpected need to reinvent itself has come to be the moment of its greatest good fortune, leading us to a larger stage. WE HOPE YOU SHARE WITH US THE EXCITEMENT OF THIS NEW VENTURE.
GR ANGE PARK OPER A IS A REGISTERED CHARIT Y, FORMED IN 1998
‘Singing with Grange Park Opera is life-affirming. These are people who want to bring a new generation to opera on and off the stage. I will be A centre for culture, learning joining them on their journey.’ and aPATRON marketplace for the exchange of ideas BRYN TERFEL, APPEAL
THE OPER AS FROM THE B EGINNING there was an ambition at Grange Park Opera to
stage world-class productions that inspire, challenge and entertain. Over 18 years we have presented 59 productions and nearly 500 performances to an audience of close to 300,000. Thus, Grange Park Opera has become known as a thriving organisation of national and international importance. The 18th festival in 2015 saw world superstar, Bryn Terfel, take the lead role in Fiddler on the Roof which was seen by more than 5,000 people in Hampshire and a further 6,000 at the BBC Proms, where tickets sold out in two hours. 95,000 tuned in to the live radio broadcast. A purpose-built theatre and increased capacity will allow GPO to stage ever more ambitious productions and attract a wider audience. A gleaming future beckons. •
Critics have heaped praise on the 2016 productions.
‘Don Carlo: gripping, gruesome and brutally convincing’ THE GUARDIAN
Bryn Terfel as Tevye the milkman in Fiddler on the Roof 2015
‘Plucky company slays an operatic Goliath’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘What a treat to hear this magnificent opera so generously honoured’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘Consider yourself amazed. Grange Park Opera’s production of Oliver! leaves us shouting for more’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘Oliver! is slick and generally a joy’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘I had such a good time that I was sorely tempted to jump on stage at the final chorus and join in’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
Simon Keenlyside as Fagin in Oliver!
Don Carlo
Oliver is caught picking a pocket
Clive Bayley as Phlip II in Don Carlo
THE FESTIVAL: 8 JUNE – 15 JULY 2017 TOSCA
PUCCINI
Rome, 1800. The opera singer, Floria Tosca, has two admirers. One is Mario Cavaradossi, a painter – and the man she loves. The other is the Chief of Police, Baron Scarpia, who wants them both: Tosca in his bed and Cavaradossi dead. Puccini’s thrilling opera has been sung by all the stars of the opera firmament. Now Joseph Calleja, one of the most sought-after tenors of this era, will take on the role of Cavaradossi, opposite Ekaterina Metlova who will sing Tosca in this most passionate and dramatic of operas. BBC CONCERT ORCHESTR A
DIE WALKÜRE WAGNER Having staged an acclaimed production of Tristan & Isolde, Grange Park Opera now presents Die Walküre, the second part of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Famed for The Ride of the Valkyries, Walküre contains some of the most compelling vocal music ever written – as well as two of Wagner’s most sympathetic characters, Siegmund and Sieglinde, in this epic about the rise and collapse of the old order. BOURNEMOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTR A
JENUFA
JANÁCEK
In a small village in Moravia, hapless Jenufa, pregnant with her cousin Steva’s child, is frozen in her adoration for him. A jealous half-brother and a conflicted stepmother trap her in a tangled web; the winter ice melts to reveal a terrible secret. Jenufa shows great fortitude and an unexpected love blossoms. Sublime music weaves through this intense, devastating music drama, regarded as one of Janacek’s masterpieces. BBC CONCERT ORCHESTR A
BRYN TERFEL
S INGS FOR YOU
A fittingly grand superstar, Bryn Terfel, welcomes you to celebrate the opening season in the new opera house. For one night only, he presents an intimate evening of music from opera, musicals . . . and his beloved Wales.
A NEW OPER A HOUSE: THE THEATRE IN THE WOODS WITH AN AMA ZING S E T TING and a fabulous new opera house just a stone’s throw
from London, we have the resources to ensure your guests receive the highest standard of hospitality, and will work closely with you to understand your business objectives. The new 650-seat theatre, just beyond the historic orchard, is modelled on the four-tiered horseshoe shape of La Scala, Milan, with a vibrant acoustic and a generous orchestra pit. Its goal is to combine intimacy and excellence. Phase I of this pioneering project began in June 2016. In September, work begins on the steel structure – 6 miles of steel – and by early November there will be a roof. This first phase will complete enough of the theatre to present the first festival – though scaffolding will envelop it. Phase 2 will include the outer brick work: a richly textured, mysterious brick drum within which is concealed the intimate auditorium of four tiers around a ‘decorated room’: balcony fronts enriched for warmth and splendour, a painted ceiling and tree-like columns soaring from floor to roof through the generous atrium. Backstage accommodation provides all that is necessary for the performers, musicians and stage technicians including dressing rooms, green room, wig, prop and equipment stores, and an unloading dock. The side stages are sufficiently large to provide for the three or four sets used in a single festival season. High on the outside wall above the main door and set within the diamond patterned brickwork is a balcony from which trumpeters will summon the audience to the performance – an idea inspired by (stolen from) Wagner’s Bayreuth. WE WANT TO MAKE THE EVENING EFFORTLESS, ENJOYABLE AND MEMOR ABLE.
WHERE WE ARE Between Leatherhead and Guildford, 10 minutes from the intersection of the A3 and M25, the new opera house is, by road, 23 miles from London and 40 miles from Alresford. Horsley Station is one mile away with trains from Waterloo, Vauxhall, Clapham Junction (45 mins 4 trains/hour). Woking Station is 8 miles away (25 mins 8 trains/hour). A shuttle bus will be in operation and there will be a later start time. Your guests can leave London at 4:30pm and arrive with time for a glass of champagne before the opera.
Model of the new opera house (which will have a roof )
DAILY MAIL
Photography: Richard Lewisohn
An exquisite place; intensely atmospheric, inherently dramatic with venerable trees, ancient brick walls, secret walled gardens ‘an excellent performance of arguably and an opera house in the woodland beckoning Verdi’s most ambitious opera.’
The Great Hall where Henry VIII had a 35-course luncheon The Red Drawing Room
ENTERTAINING YOUR GUESTS GOOD M U S IC , GOOD BOOKS , GOOD COM PANY AND GOOD CONVERSATION
are leisurely pursuits that bring great happiness. A dedicated usher will accompany your party for the evening including a curated tour of the historic house. Prior to the performance, members can have a glass of champagne in the red silk-lined drawing room and wander through the walled gardens. It is a short walk through the orchard to the new opera house. For the long interval, there is a restaurant in the magnificent 500 year-old mansion. A splendid three-course menu with fine wines might not equal the 35-course luncheon enjoyed by Henry VIII in the Great Hall . . . but then tastes have changed. There are a number of private dining rooms for parties from ten upwards. A private catered picnic in a Raj-style pavilion offers a romantic opportunity to dine in West Horsley Place’s exceptional gardens: on the Croquet Lawn, in the Lily Pond garden, under the shade of the splendid old fruit trees in the Orchard, by the magical crinklecrankle wall . . . or in the woods. The possibilities are endless. After the performance there are opportunities to mingle with the performers on stage.
The Library
THE ESTATE, THE HOUSE & SOME HISTORY
‘
AN INTRODUCTION BY BAM B ER GA SCOIGNE I HAVE HAD T WO VERY GRE AT SU RPRI S ES in the past 18 months. The first was the
unexpected news that I had been left, by a 99-year-old aunt, Mary Roxburghe, a beautiful house in the country. A week after her death I received a request to go to a solicitor’s office. On arrival I was handed her will. I did my best to look calm and collected while they provided a cup of coffee and biscuits. The other great surprise was provided by Grange Park Opera. A small group of their trustees paid a visit. Again over coffee and biscuits, they described their proposal and asked Christina and me if it might be acceptable. It didn’t take us long to say ‘Yes, indeed’. It isn’t every day that you are invited to have an opera house in your garden. It was obvious from the start that West Horsley Place is perfect for an opera festival. They are planning to build the theatre tucked away romantically in a wood. A short path through the wood will bring opera-goers to our orchard, a magical place of amazingly old fruit trees, perfect for a picnic. A wrought-iron gate leads visitors into semi-formal gardens, areas of mown grass separated by ancient box hedges, which I can imagine already full of the bright tented pavilions for which Grange Park Opera is famous. And then the house itself. Amazing . . . and I could go on and on. But it is enough to say that the ground floor, an unbroken sequence of Tudor stone flags leading into the garden, has space for 150 people to dine in style. •
There has been a manor house on the estate since soon after the Norman Conquest, but the present house is a sturdy timber-frame building from about 1500. It was still virtually a new house when Henry VIII seized it and gave it in 1536 to his cousin and childhood friend, Henry Courtenay. The grateful Courtenay felt he should ask the King and his retinue to lunch in the Great Hall – an expensive undertaking. The details of the 35 courses survive. The range of birds on offer is startling – stewed sparrows, larded pheasants, ducks, gulls, stork, gannets, heron, pullets, quail and partridge. But Henry was a fickle friend. Thomas Cromwell later persuaded him that Courtenay was unreliable, with a Catholic wife, and in 1539 the King had him beheaded – a mere three years after that congenial lunch! There is no external sign now of West Horsley Place being a timber house but inside there are fascinating glimpses in doorways, staircases, wainscoting. The original oak structure is still holding up the entire building. The elegant front of the present house is, in fact, pure sham. The owner, in about 1640, seems to have decided that it was embarrassing to live in such an old house. So he went for a cheap option – he commissioned the brick façade and had it screwed to the old timbers.
In 1931, the Marquess of Crewe (my great-grandfather) and his second wife, Peggy, sold the great Crewe Hall in Cheshire. They had decided to ‘downsize’ and were looking for a small house in Surrey. Their searches brought them to West Horsley Place. They immediately fell under its spell, as almost everyone does, and bought it although it was, in Crewe’s biographer’s words, ‘larger than they had intended’. Beautiful, spacious and ideal for house parties and family gatherings, it was the perfect place for them to live in style in the years up to the war. The house then, as now, was full of a vast numbers of books because both Crewe and his father had been passionate collectors. Mary Crewe-Milnes, Duchess of Roxburghe (1915-2014) was a god-daughter of Queen Mary, after whom she was named. Her mother, Peggy Primrose, was the daughter of the British prime minister the Earl of Rosebery. In 1935, Mary married the dashing, eligible Duke of Roxburghe, known as Bobo, and moved to the enormous Floors Castle, in the Scottish Borders. She was living there in 1953 when Bobo had the butler serve her with divorce papers with her breakfast. The Duke told her to leave the castle but her solicitor advised her not to go quietly, pointing out that in Scots law the size of the alimony depended on how willing or unwilling the wife had been to leave. On the instructions of her counsel, she staged a ten-day sit-in which became a sensation in the national press. First the Duke sacked all the servants he could, leaving her only her lady’s maid, whom the Duchess paid herself. The huge empty castle was eerie for the two women alone, with their nights soon lit only by oil lamps after the Duke had disconnected the electricity. When he cut off the water, the solicitor said her point was made. It had been worth it – the alimony was excellent. Mary moved south and, with her mother’s death in 1967, she became châtelaine of West Horsley Place, living there for more than 40 years and playing an enthusiastic part in local activities.
’
In an act of exceptional philanthropy Bamber & Christina Gascoigne have given the house, land and ancillary buildings to The Mary Roxburghe Trust which has granted Grange Park Opera a 99 year lease.
PLAN SHOWING THE HOUSE, THE WALLED GARDENS & THE NEW OPERA HOUSE THE BREWHOUSE MEADOW (PARKING)
OPERA HOUSE
ORCHARD
THE HOUSE WALLED GARDENS
‘a masterly Tristan . . . each act unfurling slowly towards the climax: steady, transparent, explosive.’ THE OBSERVER
ONLY A STONE’S THROW (45 MINUTES) FROM CENTR AL LONDON, THE NEW OPER A HOUSE WILL OFFER EXCEPTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR COMPANIES TO ENTERTAIN, TR AIN, INSPIRE AND SUPPORT. We would be pleased to visit you with an impressive model of the new opera house
A NIGHT AT THE OPER A
Let us do the organising for you. A package for eight guests with a box and private dining from £4,000.
ANNUAL CORPOR ATE MEMBERS & SPONSORS Corporate Members receive priority booking at the Theatre in the Woods. Tickets are purchased in addition to membership. Our dedicated Box Office team will assist you with ticket buying and any necessary ticket changes. Corporate Members are credited in the Festival Programme under their respective Circles – which commemorate women trend-setters. The Circle of Artemisia Gentileschi £10,000 + VAT
A leading figure of the Italian Baroque, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1653) was the first woman to be admitted to Florence’s Accademia in an era when female painters were outsiders. Members of this Circle receive a free full page of advertising and are invited to purchase up to 50 tickets during the season. We can provide private entertainment pre– and post–performance.
The Circle of Rosalind Franklin £6,500 + VAT
The work of chemist Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958) led to the understanding of DNA and the discovery of its double helix. Though not recognised for this pioneering work during her lifetime, Franklin’s work has been suitably re-evaluated posthumously. Members of this Circle are offered discounted advertising and invited to purchase up to 36 tickets.
The Circle of Coco Chanel £3,250 + VAT
Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (1883–1971) founded and built fashion staple Chanel into one of the world’s most recognisable brands. As well as the iconic Chanel Suit and Little Black Dress, Coco is famed for putting women in trousers. By joining the crossed C’s of this Circle, you will be offered discounted advertising and invited to purchase up to 20 tickets.
FOUNDING ENTERPRISE PARTNERS
£50,000 + VAT payable over three years
We are inviting a maximum of 12 Founding Enterprise Partners to contribute to the building of the new opera house, joining in a circle of trust and bringing about this very exciting venture. We can offer a customised and personal relationship to build on agreed partnership goals. Your company will be credited inside the building and in the opening pages of the festival programme. For more information contact Jack Rush.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION please contact Charlotte Pomroy charlotte@grangeparkopera.co.uk Jack Rush jack@grangeparkopera.co.uk 01962 73 73 73 GR ANGE PARK OPER A SUTTON MANOR FARM ALRESFORD SO24 0AA
THE THEATRE IN THE WOODS APPEAL Joint chairs Sir David Davies Dame Vivien Duffield Patrons Joanna Lumley Bryn Terfel Grange Park Opera trustees Simon Freakley Chairman Joanna Barlow Tony Bugg Iain Burnside Mary Creswell Sir David Davies Dame Vivien Duffield Jeremy Farr Hamish Forsyth Emma Kane
Our passion for the beautiful does not make us extravagant, nor does our love of culture make us weak. As for our wealth, we do not brag of it. Instead, we use it well, appropriately and for the good of all. PERICLES 432 BC