“People love Jane Austen, even though those books are absurd to us, because we like the clarity of it” — Nick Hornby

Our February 2019 production is inspired by Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Composer Jonathan Dove and librettist Alasdair Middleton’s opera is a witty and approachable interpretation of the novel, and since Austen was a sometime resident of Chawton (Hampshire), we anticipate local interest. The vocal lines combine imagination with enchanting virtuosity.

“I intend to make Fanny Price fall in love with me!”

While Sir Thomas Bertram is away visiting his plantations in Antigua, his Mansfield Park Estate is thrown out of kilter by the arrival of Mary Crawford and her fickle brother, Henry. Hedonists escaping the social whirl of London, they crash into the countryside and corrupt the Bertram family.

At the centre of the chaotic household, Fanny Price, Austen’s own Cinderella, watches helplessly as relationships are tested and the social order is unsettled. Will the Bertram daughters escape untarnished by Henry Crawford’s wanton advances? Will Fanny’s beloved cousin Edmund see through Mary’s superficial social charm?

Join Opera South at Haslemere Hall and prepare to be whisked through this nineteenth-century high-society romance by internationally acclaimed opera director James Hurley and a stellar lineup. Audiences are in for a real treat - a thrilling enactment by a professional ensemble of emerging operatic stars.

Click here to download a .pdf flyer

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