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.