Electrifying: the Grange Festival’s Queen of Spades reviewed

In opera, as in so much high-budget entertainment, expectation management is half the battle. With its massive Greek Revival mansion, approached through miles of rolling parkland, The Grange Festival has the grandest setting of any of the summer festivals; and that might have something to do with why the opera served up there has so often felt less than overwhelming. Possibly I’ve been unlucky in my choices at the Grange since it relaunched under the current management in 2017. But many different elements need to fall precisely into place at precisely the right time if an opera is really to catch light, and quite often, under those wide Hampshire skies, that necessary spark has been absent.

Not this time. The Grange Festival’s new production of The Queen of Spades doesn’t just ignite: it erupts. Slowly at first, it’s true: Gary McCann’s sets echo the converted orangery that houses the Grange’s theatre, and the costumes suggest that the whole thing has been updated to the 1950s, which makes no sense at all for a drama set in tsarist Russia.