SOLD OUT

Critically acclaimed new opera company Wild Arts (★★★★★ Opera Now, ★★★★ The Guardian) is delighted to bring its production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute to the beautiful barn at Owlpen Manor. 

The Magic Flute will be fully staged in costume and sung in English by a cast of 12 exceptional singers, among them 6 young singers on our Young Artists Programme, and a chamber orchestra of 10 top musicians. The production is directed by James Hurley (who has directed for ENO, Glyndebourne and Opera North this season), with costumes by the young fashion designer Sophie Lincoln (a name to watch) and conducted by Wild Arts' Artistic Director Orlando Jopling.

The performance will take place in the Pole Barn, made using traditional roundwood timber framing techniques using larch from the Owlpen valley; a lovely, intimate space with perfect acoustics for live music. There will be a long interval for picnics. 

Deep in a private Cotswold valley, Owlpen Manor has been described as “the most beautiful place in England” with terraced formal gardens and magnificent 17th century yews.  The Tudor Manor House is steeped in 800 years of history, with Arts and Crafts furniture and wonderful views across the valley.

You are welcome to arrive from 5pm to set up your picnic, and bring food, drink, rugs, chairs, tables, friends, candelabras and whatever else you would like. The opera will start at 6pm, with a long interval from 7 - 8.30pm, finishing at around 9.30pm. You are welcome to stay after the show to enjoy a drink with the stars, under the stars. 

Tickets will be strictly limited to 150, so do book early to secure your place. There is a discount for groups of 6. 

Mozart The Magic Flute

In a dream-like world, the (nearly) heroic Tamino falls in love with Pamina, the kidnapped daughter of the mysterious Queen of the Night. He must go on a quest with Papageno the hapless bird-catcher as partner, to rescue her, but who is good, and who to trust, turns out to be more tricky than he imagined.

A ticket to the Opera £85 | Under 25s £50 | Six tickets for the price of five £435 

Owlpen and the Wild Arts team.

Wild Arts

Wild Arts is a small opera company with big ambitions. We give opportunities to exceptionally talented performers at the beginning of their careers, and we take opera to over 40 places around the UK, in a one-planet-living way, adhering to the Theatre Green Book and showing how the arts can thrive in a sustainable way. Over 500 primary school pupils are actively involved each year in our work. We would like to expand our programme and would value your support in doing so. Our long-term goal is to create a truly green opera house and performance space, set in a bio-diverse landscape, and constructed entirely from sustainable materials.

Look at our outreach work here, and our public performances here.

About Owlpen

Owlpen Manor, home of Sir Nicholas and Lady Mander and their family of five children (and twelve grandchildren), has long been recognised as one of the most romantic Tudor manor houses in southern England. Set in a picturesque valley among bluebell woods right under the Cotswold hills, the house dates from 1450 to 1616, with careful Cotswold Arts and Crafts repairs of 1926, when the house was saved from ruin after over 80 years of dereliction - a Victorian sleeping beauty.

Owlpen’s breath-taking terraced gardens are developed around an early formal garden on a manorial scale. A charming hillside garden is set on seven hanging terraces of the 16th/17th centuries, with magnificent yew topiary, old roses and box parterres. The garden was reordered in the 1720s and is today a historic survival of great interest and rarity.

owlpen.com