Why country house opera is just the ticket

Last Saturday I went to the opera for only the second time in my life. This was at the invitation of David Ross, my former boss at the New Schools Network, who hosts an arts festival called Nevill Holt Opera at his house in Leicestershire every summer. Launched in 2013, it is now a mainstay of the summer season, with the festival lasting until the end of June. The two operas this year are La bohème and The Barber of Seville.

Caroline and I were there to see the Puccini, but as anyone who’s attended an opera at a country house will tell you, the production itself is only part of the appeal. Guests are encouraged to arrive early so they can explore the gardens, and the tableau that greeted us when we got there at about 4.15 p.m. was like a scene from Four Weddings and a Funeral. Men and women in evening dress lounged on picnic rugs sipping champagne, while the afternoon sun bathed the surrounding countryside in an amber glow. I half expected a band to pop up and start playing ‘There’ll Always Be an England’.

The main event began at 5 p.m. in a stable block that’s been converted into a 400-seat opera house, including an orchestra pit. In preparation, I had read Caroline a synopsis of the story of La bohème on the way there, but it had left us both a bit underwhelmed. An opera in four acts, it begins as a fairly broad comedy, with a romantic plot and subplot, then, in Act III, with much grinding of gears, it lurches into a full-blown tragedy. Nearly all the characters are penniless artists living in Paris in the 1830s – hence the title – and the theme, as far as I could tell, is that the course of true love never runs smooth.