Unlikely situations

Summer Festival Time: when the music-loving British populace flocks or straggles to concerts in a variety of unsuitable venues, all the way from mighty monuments like (dare one say) St Paul’s or the Albert Hall to Little Bethel and the Quaker Meeting House, the Old Forge, the Stately Home, ex-quaysides and industrial structures, parks, squares, pavements.

I’ve several such unlikely places to report on this month. A first-ever visit to Garsington Opera was a surprise; for the gawky Heath-Robinson-ish thing run up against the old stone manor to cover audience, stage and pit proved possessed of a real acoustic — clear yet sonorous, neither too distant nor too in-your-face, and better for balance and diction than many a more permanent theatre. The grounds, with the glorious sweeping panorama of the Thames valley and the gardens where gilded socialites and socialists languished and lusted, were more poetic than the severely minimalist sets for Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night.