Walcot Hall sits in the valley of the River Kemp which flows serenely towards the Clun between the round-topped, wooded hills of southwest Shropshire. In 1764, Clive of India chose to settle in this beautiful corner of England, just east of Offa’s Dyke, and bought the house with its 80,000 acre estate. He commissioned an architect, Sir William Chambers to re-order the house, which he then left to his son Edward. Walcot Hall remained in the Clive family for 170 years, during which time vast sums were also spent on improving the grounds. A mile-long lake, enlarged by Napoleonic French prisoners of war, still spans the view from the Hall.  In 1800, a spacious ballroom was added in order to house a carpet presented to Edward while he’d been governor of Madras.

Walcot is now owned by Robin Parish, whose family bought it fifty years ago.  Six years ago Robin took the risk of inviting a touring company, Opera à la Carte to stage a production of a classic Opera in the ballroom. The audience were encouraged to dress up and bring elegant picnics, in the manner made popular by the Glyndebourne operati, to lay out in the handsome grounds between the hall and the lake. As productions of opera of any kind are thin on the ground in Shropshire, the initiative was enthusiastically endorsed by local lovers of the genre, and the event has become an annual must-do. There is also an option to dine inside the house, and this year I was kindly invited by Ivor and Caroline Windsor to join them in the front row and for dinner.

The production on offer was Cosi Fan Tutte, a work baffling in the disparity between its piffling plot and sublime music.  What was it, I wonder, that prompted Mozart to devote such creative genius to a story that wouldn’t make it past first base in the Mills and Boon editorial office?

Set by Opera à la Carte in the days of the Raj during the early 1920’s, Mozart’s mischievous lampoon of gender stereotyping tells of two sisters,  Fiordiligi and Dorabella whose partners test their fidelity. Encouraged by incorrigible bachelor, Don Alfonso (sung by a slightly unconvincing Thomas Barnard), the sisters’ suitors Ferrando and Guglielmo lay his wager that the girls would fall in love with any man who turned up. The men tell their girlfriends that they’ve been called to military service, but come back disguised as young, heavily moustachioed Indian nabobs to test this theory on each other’s partner.

Fortunately, the frustrations of this fatuous plot become irrelevant.  In fact, one is almost glad not to know quite what the performers are saying, for the quality of the singing did ample justice to Mozart’s wonderful score.  That producer/director Nicholas Heath was able to sign up six such superb singers is testament to the extraordinary standard of operatic talent in this country. Peter Wilman (tenor) as Ferrando, and Canadian soprano, Lynn Boudreau as Despina I especially enjoyed.

The work was simply and imaginatively staged and performed in a way that held the attention and evoked the appreciation of a full but intimate house. Certainly I enjoyed the evening, dinner, and drinks afterwards with the chance to meet the cast and producer, as much as any at the Royal Opera House.

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