When the Government announced the national lockdown, Grange Park Opera, Surrey - like all cultural venues across the world - was forced to close its doors and fall silent. That was until its indefatigable founder Wasfi Kani refused to accept defeat, and created The Found Season.
She has devised a season of entirely new work (nothing from the archives) available solely online, entirely free at
www.grangeparkopera.co.uk
• 15 performances free to view online
• Superstars Sir Bryn Terfel and Sir Simon Keenlyside give concerts from their homes in Wales, tenor Joseph Calleja sings from Malta
• Eight new performances take place inside the Theatre in the Woods - a repertoire picked to embrace the new social distancing rules
• English National Ballet dancers - and Tamara Rojo - amongst more than 70 artists taking part
• Season live from 4 June 2020 (until 12 July)
• Bringing opera to as many people as possible - old fans and new - at this difficult time.
Highlights include…
• Tamara Rojo CBE, English National Ballet’s Artistic Director, introduces a pas de deux from lead principal Erina Takahashi and first soloist James Streeter on the Grange Park Opera stage, followed by an interview
• Violinist and a winner of BBC Young Musician of the Year, Coco Tomito, appearing alongside her fellow locked-down colleagues from the Yehudi Menuhin School
• The climax of The Found Season is Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen, composed during the closing months of World War Two. Strauss took up his pen the day after the Vienna opera was destroyed and his music mourns the loss of culture. With 23 string players from London Symphony Orchestra, English National Opera, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Grange Park Opera’s large theatre stage offers each player 5.37 square metres of playing space.
See Wasfi Kani talking about how the season came about here.