Name: L’elisir d’amore
Start: 2025-07-21T18:20:00
Location: Wormsley

Experience the enchanting world of opera at Garsington Opera's 2025 season, where a selection of timeless masterpieces, including 'L’elisir d’amore', 'The Queen of Spades', 'Rodelinda', and 'Fidelio', will captivate audiences. Set against the backdrop of Wormsley Estate in Stokenchurch, these performances promise a sublime fusion of music and storytelling. With maestros like Chloe Rooke, Douglas Boyd, Peter Whelan, and Gérard Korsten leading the orchestra, each opera offers a unique journey into the heart of operatic brilliance.

A Melodious Summer: The Magnificence of Garsington Opera's 2025 Season

Garsington Opera is all set to captivate audiences with a stellar lineup for its 2025 season at the picturesque Wormsley Estate in Stokenchurch, United Kingdom. This season is a celebration of some of the most revered operatic works, featuring 'L’elisir d’amore,' 'The Queen of Spades,' 'Rodelinda,' and 'Fidelio.' Conducted by renowned maestros like Chloe Rooke, Douglas Boyd, Peter Whelan, and Gérard Korsten, each performance promises to deliver an unforgettable experience, blending historical greatness with modern interpretations in a setting that enhances the beauty of these timeless stories.

Garsington Opera's 2025 Season: A Showcase of Timeless Operatic Masterpieces

The 2025 season at Garsington Opera promises an unforgettable series of performances with timeless classics brought to life at the exquisite Wormsley venue. Audiences can look forward to experiencing the artistic brilliance of 'L’elisir d’amore,' 'The Queen of Spades,' 'Rodelinda,' and 'Fidelio.' With renowned conductors such as Chloe Rooke, Douglas Boyd, Peter Whelan, and Gérard Korsten leading the charge, the season is set to be a celebration of operatic mastery, showcasing the diverse emotional landscapes and intricate narratives that these works offer.

Garsington Opera's 2025 Season: A Symphony of Passion and Drama at Wormsley

As the summer of 2025 unfolds, Garsington Opera invites you to the serene Wormsley Estate for a spectacular line-up of operatic performances. From Donizetti's romantic 'L'elisir d’amore' to Beethoven's stirring 'Fidelio', this series promises a rich blend of musical genius and theatrical flair. Conductors like Chloe Rooke, Douglas Boyd, Peter Whelan, and Gérard Korsten will steer these masterpieces, breathing life into timeless stories. Join us for a celebration of opera that captures the heart and stirs the soul.

A Summer of Opera: Garsington's Grand Showcases

Chloe Rooke

Christopher Luscombe

Garsington Opera

Ahead of your visit in the summer, discover more about La traviata in this insight talk combining historical context from Sophie Rashbrook with musical excerpts performed by singers from our Emerging Artists’ Programme.

Sophie Rashbrook is a writer, librettist and opera dramaturg. Formerly the Nicholas John Dramaturg at Welsh National Opera, she holds an MPhil in Russian Studies from Cambridge University, an MA in Opera-Making from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and spent a year playing the cello at the St Petersburg Conservatoire.

Insight Talk: La traviata

Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Ahead of your visit this summer, discover more about Der Rosenkavalier in this insight talk inc conversation with classical music critic Fiona Maddocks and director Bruno Ravella with musical excerpts performed by singers from our Emerging Artists’ Programme.

Fiona Maddocks is a music critic who specialises in classical music. She has worked in radio, TV, magazines and newspapers, including as founder editor of BBC Music Magazine. Maddocks is also The Observer’s classical music critic. Bruno Ravella is an international opera director and made his debut at Garsington in 2015 with Strauss’ Intermezzo, and is returning this year to direct Der Rosenkavalier" class="css-u850">Der Rosenkavalier which first debuted at Garsington in 2021. Together they will discuss the historical context behind Der Rosenkavalier and tell us more about Strauss and his musical world.

Insight Talk: Der Rosenkavalier

Garsington Studios

Ahead of your visit this summer, discover more about The Importance of Being Earnest in this insight talk in conversation with composer Gerald Barry and conductor and Artistic Director Douglas Boyd with musical excerpts performed by singers from our Emerging Artists’ Programme.

Boyd and Barry will discuss how the opera relates to Wilde’s original story and will delve into Gerald Barry’s musical world.

Insight Talk: The Importance of Being Earnest

Ahead of your visit in the summer, discover more about Il ritorno d’Ulisse in this insight talk combining historical context from Katy Hamilton with musical excerpts performed by singers from our Emerging Artists’ Programme.

Presenter, musician and researcher Katy Hamilton is one of the most sought-after speakers on music and opera and provides programme notes for many leading arts organisations and festivals. Katy will give historical context to the piece and will tell us about Monteverdi and his musical world.

Insight Talk: Il ritorno d'Ulisse

One of opera’s most enduring masterpieces, with music of exquisite tenderness and lyricism, Verdi’s La traviata is a tragic story that is both powerful and deeply touching. Returning after their sparkling production of Platée (2024) and RPS Awardwinning The Turn of the Screw (2019/22) are director Louisa Muller and designer Christopher Oram. We also welcome back Madison Leonard and Oleksiy Palchycov as Violetta and Alfredo, whose partnership delighted us all in L’elisir d’amore last year. The Philharmonia Orchestra will perform under the baton of Douglas Boyd, and Tess Jackson will make her conducting debut with Garsington Opera for two performances.

La traviata

Wormsley

Der Rosenkavalier weaves opulent, bittersweet waltzes with lush late-Romantic orchestration, evoking both nostalgic elegance and the ache of time passing. Strauss’s co-creator, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, wrote of a world of ceremony and lavish ritual, in which the characters are helplessly entangled.

This is the much-anticipated return of Bruno Ravella and Gary McCann’s stylish and opulent 2021 production, which had to be performed to a limited audience after lockdown. Making their Garsington debuts are conductor Finnegan Downie Dear, Matilda Sterby, Andreas Bauer Kanabas and Niamh O’Sullivan, whose Octavian at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées received great acclaim. We are also delighted to welcome back Soraya Mafi as Sophie and Robert Murray as Valzacchi.

Der Rosenkavalier

Following their acclaimed production of Orfeo in 2022, we welcome back the same creative team to perform the second of Monteverdi’s opera trilogy. John Caird will direct and Laurence Cummings will conduct The English Concert on the stage, with a stellar cast lead by Cecelia Hall and Ed Lyon.

In the last five fruitful years of his life, Monteverdi wrote this opera for the carnival season of 1640, a time for music, dance and masquerading. His musical style, so astonishingly bold and innovative when he wrote Orfeo more than thirty years earlier, has developed yet further, with arias and duets that give full life and humanity to his characters.

Il ritorno d'Ulisse

Gerald Barry’s witty and highly original adaptation of this much-loved masterpiece will be conducted by Douglas Boyd and directed by Jack Furness, following his celebrated Garsington productions of The Queen of Spades and Rusalka. The visually striking, colourful and bombastic production features the return of Jennifer France, Henry Waddington and Seán Boylan, with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

If you have any preconceptions about an opera based on Oscar Wilde’s brilliant 1894 comedy of manners and misapprehensions, be prepared to abandon them. The composer Gerald Barry adores the play and has taken inspiration from Wilde’s statement “That we should treat all trivial things in life very seriously, and all serious things in life with a sincere and studied triviality”, turning the play inside out and upside down with reckless effrontery. As Barry has said, “The play’s bones are unshatterable. My version is an X-ray of it.” Any shattering that occurs during the course of the entertainment is more likely to be of plates than of dramatic structure.

L’elisir d’amore

Articles & News