A Summer Opera Evening at Great Ruffins

Wild Arts is delighted to return for a fourth year to the beautiful garden at Great Ruffins with our new show for 2025.

MORE TICKETS RELEASED BUT PLEASE BRING YOUR CHAIRS

Our opera evening is a love story built around favourite opera arias, duets and ensembles, sung by the stars of tomorrow and played by a string quintet of top chamber musicians. 

Bring a picnic for afterwards and enjoy the summer evening in the peaceful grounds of architect A.H. Mackmurdo's quirkiest creation, located on Beacon Hill, between Wickham Bishops and Great Totham.

5pm Gardens open   

6pm Performance starts in the croquet lawn

7.30pm – 9pm Picnics 

9.30pm Carriages  

Bernstein - Candide; West Side Story
Britten - Billy Budd
Donizetti - Don Pasquale; L'Elisir d'Amore
Handel - Semele
Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin
Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro
Porter - Kiss me Kate
Puccini - La Bohème
Verdi - Falstaff
Rodgers and Hammerstein - Carousel
Rossini - Il barbiere di Siviglia
Verdi - Rigoletto

We look forward to welcoming you to a beautiful evening of opera. Please book early - the performances in 2022, 2023 and 2024 sold out.

wildarts.org.uk is also presenting Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin and Donizetti The Elixir of Love at the Essex Summer Opera Festival at Layer Marney Tower, 17th - 22nd June, Kelvedon Hall on 28 & 29 June, Thaxted Festival on 12 July, and Opera Holland Park on 14th and 16th August. 

Tickets are now on sale for the 25th Roman River Festival, 19-28 September 2025 - a bumper celebration of 25 wonderful years of chamber and choral music, with an incredible line-up of musicians including Tom Poster, Sasha Rattle, Elena Urioste, Orlando Jopling, Sijie Chen, Martin James Bartlett, Marta Fontanals-Simmonds, the Armonico Consort, David Cohen, Alissa Firsova, Jordan Ashman, and a return from the festival's founding Artistic Director Juliet Jopling.

Music by Rachmaninov, Hildegard von Bingen, Mahler, Amy Beach, Shostakovich, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Mozart, Haydn, Britten, Brahms, Takemitsu, Beethoven, Bach, Rameau, Byrd, Couperin, Debussy, Liszt, plus talks, book readings, street dance by Joseph Toonga and a great party to celebrate 25 years of the festival. Details

We also present our dramatised Handel's Messiah each December at Chelmsford Cathedral (18th December), Smith Square Hall in London (9th December), and Layer Marney Tower (14th December) - details here.

To be notified about chamber music concerts during the season in the drawing room at Great Ruffins, please sign up to the mailing list at https://vermeerchamberconcerts.org/