★★★★★
When Verdi’s great Shakespearean farce is well sung and conducted in a production that fizzes with exuberance, there is no better way to spend a summer’s evening. And Garsington has pulled out all the stops.
In the pit the Philharmonia Orchestra is in electrifying form under Richard Farnes, a musician alive to every comic twist and romantic turn in Verdi’s masterly score. Why one of Britain’s finest opera conductors is working in a field outside High Wycombe rather than in the world’s great opera houses is mystifying, but their loss is Garsington’s gain. You will rarely hear the intricate ensembles delivered with such rapport between pit and stage, nor the drama paced so effectively, nor orchestral detail spring out so vividly.
If, occasionally, the