Imagine a world where your journey to and from the opera, theatre or cinema was a magical, wondrous part of the dramatic experience. Forget the usual crowded Tube journeys, smelly buses, retail tunes attacking your ears as you trudge along the pavement, advertising hoardings begging your eyes for attention, tinny music spilling out of a commuter's earphones. Picture all of it being swept away and replaced with a gentle walk through woodland, surrounded by other enthusiasts all quietly and communally anticipating the experience that awaits.
And then you behold the theatre emerging through the trees before you…
This is exactly the experience being created by former University Challenge host Bamber Gascoigne, with the construction of the first permanent purpose-built opera house to be built in the UK for decades.
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Back in 2014, Gascoigne had been surprised to inherit the dilapidated West Horsley Place in Surrey from his aunt, Mary Innes-Ker the Duchess of Roxburghe, and reluctantly sold off some of its treasures to finance the work that was needed to prevent the Tudor building from falling to pieces.
But help arrived in the form of serendipitous conductor Wasfi Kani, whose Grange Park Opera had just found itself with nowhere to perform, after negotiations to continue at its former home at The Grange in Hampshire broke down in 2015.
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Grange Park Opera had been using the near-derelict home of the Baring banking dynasty since 1998 and had built a festival, which could compete with Garsington, Longborough Festival Opera and perhaps even the cream of the crop, Glyndebourne opera house in East Sussex. Championed by high-profile friends such as Joanna Lumley (whose husband Stephen Barlow regularly conducts there) and Stephen Fry, the festival has gone from strength to strength and the move to the stunning new opera house seems destined to bring it even more into the public eye.
The interior of the theatre is based on the legendary Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the exterior, in its woodland setting, is unquestionably romantic. Garsington's arrestingly sparkling pavilion – which is dismantled after each season – is a stunning vision but Gascoigne's "Theatre in the Woods", designed by David Lloyd Jones and Tim Ronalds Architects, blends beautifully with its location. The brickwork cladding mirrors the 15th-century hall through the woods, making it seem as if you've stumbled on a modern-day folly.
Grange Park Opera's first season at West Horsley Place opens on 8 June and will star Joseph Calleja in Tosca, alongside performances of Jenufa, Die Walkure and a concert with Bryn Terfel; grangeparkopera.co.uk
