Nevill Holt is a hamlet located about 6 miles northeast of Market Harborough; the dominant historic building in the village is Nevill Holt Hall - Grade I listed, and constructed before 1300. In 2000, the Hall was purchased by Carphone Warehouse co-founder (and major Conservative party donor) David Ross, who later commissioned a 400-seat opera house to be built in the stable block.
In 2013, Nevill Holt Opera was launched as an independent opera festival - founded by Wasfi Kani and Michael Moody, and strongly supported and patronised by Ross. What began as an annual event featuring a headline opera production as well as an open-air exhibition of contemporary British sculpture, has now morphed into the much more wide-ranging "arts and culture" Nevill Holt Festival which, it must be said, is not our usual milieu.
In 1917, the preacher, suffragist and campaigner for the ordination of women, Agnes Maude Royden, described the Church of England as "the Conservative Party at prayer". In a similar vein, one might almost describe the Nevill Holt Festival as "the Conservative party at play"; amongst the many offerings during the festival were talks by Johnny Mercer (former Tory MP) and Rachel Johnson (former Tory PM's sister), Boris Johnson (former Tory PM), Sarah Vine (Daily Mail columnist and former wife of former Tory MP Michael ("I think the people of this country have had enough of experts") Gove and Jeffrey Archer (former Tory MP and convict). In addition to that glittering line up there were further talks by other such luminaries as Trinny Woodall and "Aggers & Tuffers". I think I can safely say that I would rather have spent an evening having all my body hair removed with a cheese grater than being forced to sit through any of these talks - but, each to their own...
No matter. We just go for the opera, and after last year's most enjoyable performance of "The Magic Flute", we headed off to see this year's Northern Opera production of "Cosi fan tutte".
The stage:
Two elderly members of the audience:
A major feature of the operas at Nevill Holt is that the interval is 90 minutes long, affording the great and the good the opportunity (on this particular occasion) to chow down on a prix fixe menu of:
Tomato salad, vierge vinaigrette, burrata, fresh herbs
Poached salmon, fennel cassoulet, aioli
or
Ratatouille, sauce pistou, salade verte
Éclair au chocolat
for just £65 per head (drinks extra) - and for the not so great and good to wander around the grounds.
The entrance to the opera house with the "Pimms and ice cream" concession beach hut in the middle distance and a view out over the valley in the far distance:
Clearly not amongst the great and the good:Given David Ross's political leanings, one must assume that this copy of the famous EdStone leaning against the outside wall of the opera house is intended to be ironic (or perhaps even sarcastic):
Two further views out over the Leicestershire countryside:
The main residence occupied by Ross and family. In front were six neon "installations" by Chila Burman, the headline artist for the 2025 Festival:
Visible on the lawn is Burman's mixed media Ice Cream Van (topped by a (yes - you guessed it) neon tiger:
Does my bum look big in this?
Directly in front of the opera house is this version of "Still Water" by Nic Fiddian-Green:
The Chapel to the side of the main house:
Two audience members sated by their repast of cakes, tea and coffee:
purchased from the tiny Northern Cobbler van to the left of the main dining marquee:
The Pimms concession doing a roaring trade:
At my insistence we paid another visit to the statue of Bryn Terfel (as Wotan from Wagner's Ring Cycle) located next to the opera house:
"You're a big lad, Bryn - but what I lack in stature I make
up for in agility, so I'm pretty sure I could take you..."
A further stroll around the grounds, including a quick stop in the Waterstones concession marquee, where large numbers of signed copies of Boris Johnson's account of his time
in politics, "Unleashed", were somewhat forlornly stacked on and under display tables. Expect to see them heavily discounted in branches of The Works any day now...
Back inside for Act 2:
So, what of the opera? The production - directed by Cecilia Stinton and conducted (from the fortepiano) by Chris Hopkins - explored a reimagined version of the opera, with a focus on shifting perspectives. It featured a number of "theatrical boxes", suggesting the notion of an "opera-within-an-opera", where the characters themselves are also singers in an opera. While it was an interesting idea in principle, I'm not entirely convinced that it worked. None of the characters (whether "in the opera" or "in the opera within the opera") ever appeared out of period costume, thereby suggesting a period setting for both. On the other hand, those same characters were, on occasion, seen drinking from modern vacuum mugs, and the models used by the characters in the opera to plan the staging of the opera within the opera were illuminated by electric Anglepoise lamps. Confused? We were. The plot - two men test their fiancées' fidelity by disguising themselves and courting each other's lover – is just the type of thing that drives Amanda to distraction – she hates any kind of humour that relies on mistaken identities and mis-understandings (it's probably a good job that she's a little too young to have ever experienced a Brian Rix farce 'in the flesh'). Fortunately, she tolerates Cosi because she likes the music...
In this production (as always) following deception, switched identities and manipulation, the women succumb, thereby raising questions about love and trust. In the versions we have seen before, forgiveness has always ultimately prevailed, with the original couples reunited with each other. Recently, however, I read that, on occasion, the swapped pairings are shown to prevail.
It came as something of a surprise, then, for this production to walk a third line – as the lights dropped to signal the end of the opera, the two women were embracing (and thereby reinforcing their commitment to sisterhood), while the men stood alone and somewhat disconsolate on opposite sides of the stage, some way from each of their former lovers – an interestingly indeterminate, if (for me) vaguely unsatisfying, conclusion.
Beyond that, the performances were uniformly excellent; the reviews below offer more informed perspectives (with the exception of the one in The Stage, whose author was clearly having a bad night and claimed that "This may be the only production of this work that I've seen in which I didn't laugh once").
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