Achingly Beautiful

Vivaldi's 'La verità in cimento'
at Garsington Opera,
reviewed by RODERIC DUNNETT

The loss of Leonard Ingrams deprived opera in England of one of its greatest enthusiasts and finest allies. His knowledge, good taste and judgment guided Garsington Opera through its first heyday, which stretched from the end of the 1980s to the new millennium. In fact, in terms of quality and imagination it has never looked back.

Ingrams' tragic early death might have spelt the end for this versatile and popular summer season of opera, of which he was such an essential part. Instead, we owe it to his family, who retained the three annual productions at Garsington for a further three summers, and more importantly to a small team of committed devotees led by Anthony Whitworth-Jones, who by a chance of good luck became available to steer the event through its transitional period and into what promises to be a bright new era, that the name Garsington Opera has not petered out and died; on the contrary, it is alive and well...

ANTONIO VIVALDI

GARSINGTON OPERA

LAURENCE CUMMINGS

JAMES LAING