Salieri’s revenge

Magical transformations are a commonplace of opera. We see our heroes turned into animals, trees, statues; witness wild beasts turned suddenly gentle and even the dead brought back to life, with scarcely a raised eyebrow. But opera’s greatest metamorphosis — and one still less remarked upon — is the annual British phenomenon of country house opera.

Auditoriums are conjured up in fields and gardens, ruins filled with light and life, and rural silence is exchanged for cosmopolitan croonings and tunings. With little more than a generator and a couple of portaloos, companies like Longborough, Bampton, Iford and Garsington serve up serious music season after season, taking risks the major metropolitan houses could never contemplate. It’s an artistic sleight of hand we’re much too apt to take for granted; too distracted, perhaps, by the black-tie trappings and social rigmarole that are its smoke and mirrors.

Specialising in neglected classical repertoire, Oxfordshire’s Bampton Opera is pretty much guaranteed to produce a show you won’t have seen before — think Paisiello and Philidor as well as lesser-known Haydn and Handel. Quality control is assured by the impeccable instincts of artistic directors Gilly French and Jeremy Gray, who have gained the trust of their audiences over more than 20 years of smart choices and even smarter stagings.

What’s unusual about Bampton, though, is the friction it maintains between its growing ambition (this year’s production will tour both to Westonbirt and London) and its total lack of pretension. The orchestra mixes professionals with performing friends of Bampton who have been with the company since its start in 1993, while evening dress is shunned in favour of whatever’s warmest and most comfortable. The results are giddily exciting, propelled by wit, charm and bags of joy.

Don’t believe everything you hear in Amadeus; there’s a great deal more to Salieri than a jealous rival to Mozart, as Bampton’s La grotta di Trofonio (Trofonio’s Cave) makes clear.