Grange Park Opera

Arts as a Driver of Social Change

Grange Park Opera is one of the major summer opera seasons in Europe.

Founded in 1998 by Wasfi Kani CBE, Grange Park Opera has staged more than 80 operas, including the acclaimed productions of Rusalka, Tristan und Isolde, Peter Grimes, and Fiddler on the Roof with Bryn Terfel at the BBC Proms.

Grange Park Opera is situated in West Horsley Place, a 350-acre estate with an historically significant 14th century house surrounded by formal gardens.

The house was inherited in 2015 by author and broadcaster Bamber Gascoigne from his aunt Mary, Duchess of Roxburghe. He gifted the estate to the West Horsley Place Trust.

In eleven months, Wasfi Kani and her team built a five-storey opera house modelled on La Scala, Milan, seating 700 with some funding support from The Banga Family Trust. Its sister charity Pimlico Opera works in prisons and primary schools.

https://grangeparkopera.co.uk/

  • “The trust contributed to Grange Park Opera in 2017 to the building of a new opera house that was created within the Surrey estate inherited by broadcaster Bamber Gascoigne.   Since 2017, more than 120,000 people have attended performances in this spectacular new building and thousands of people have been employed. During the opera season 400 people work at Grange Park Opera; roughly a third are artists.   For Pimlico Opera, the trust has donated to Primary Robins. This programme gives a weekly singing lesson to 6,500 primary school children in schools with no music. The schools are located nationwide – from Newcastle to Kent – and the programme delivers to 100,000 hours of teaching a year.”

    Wasfi Kani CBE
    Founder, Grange Park Opera & Pimlico Opera

Previous
Previous

National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai