Grange Park Opera's latest plans, plus a reader offer for the 2018 season
Grange Park Opera is now seeking support for phase two of the development at its new location – and you can help.


This summer, Grange Park Opera welcomed more than 14,000 visitors to its spectacular debut season at West Horsley Place, in the Surrey Hills, making use of its brand new 700-seat Theatre in the Woods, which was created entirely by private donations and built in the space of 11 months.
Founded in 1998 by Wasfi Kani, Grange Park is now seeking support for phase two of the development at its new location; it requires £4 million to enhance the opera house, with cross-gartered exterior brickwork, a fanfare balcony, larch cladding around the dressing rooms and tweaks to the interior staircases and vestibules under the expert eye of Nicky Haslam, plus a £2.5 million endowment designed to ensure the future of the company.
The centrepiece of phase two will be the creation of a ‘marvellous Lavatorium Rotundum: a circular masterpiece of a lavatory, built around a black poplar tree in the venerable orchards of West Horsley Place’.
The plan is to have everything in place in time for the 2018 season (June 7 to July 14), which will include Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, Gounod’s heart-rending Roméo et Juliette and Verdi’s tale of intrigue, Un Ballo in Maschera.
Visit www.grangeparkopera.co.uk/spend-a-penny to find out more about the campaign.
Country Life readers with Christmas shopping in mind can benefit from a ticket offer for the 2018 season: two tickets, a complimentary programme and a bottle of Laurent-Perrier Brut Champagne for £350. Visit www.grangeparkopera.co.uk/christmas.
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
Annunciata is director of contemporary art gallery TIN MAN ART and an award-winning journalist specialising in art, culture and property. Previously, she was Country Life’s News & Property Editor. Before that, she worked at The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, researched for a historical biographer and co-founded a literary, art and music festival in Oxfordshire. Lancashire-born, she lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and a mischievous pug.
-
You can’t always rely on the Great British summer — but you can rely on its watches
British watchmakers have excelled themselves in recent months — releasing bright and beautiful timepieces that you'll want on your wrist through summer, and beyond.
-
Simon Jenkins: 50 years of saving Britain's buildings, from triumphs and disasters to the great country house we bought for £1
In 1975, a new organisation was set up with the express aim of saving Britain's most beautiful and historic buildings from the wrecking ball. How has SAVE fared in the 50 years since then far? Simon Jenkins — who was involved as a trustee right from the very start — looks back on half a century of successes... and one or two painful failures.