Mitridate review: High-spirited Mozart production is primarily for opera specialists

The voices are particularly strong in Tim Albery’s austere staging

Iestyn Davies as Farnace and Soraya Mafi as Ismene in Mitridate (Julian Guidera)

This is the time of year when the country-house opera companies spark into life. Two nights ago, it was Opera Holland Park; now it’s Garsington Opera. And what an unexpected success story the latter has been.

It came into existence quite accidentally in 1989, when two benefit performances were staged at Garsington Manor – once the haunt of the Bloomsbury group – to raise money for the cash-strapped Oxford Playhouse. Figaro was the work, and with a manor house stage-left and a formal garden stage-right, not much was needed in the way of scenery; the weather smiled on the enterprise. The following year, two more operas were put on, and a Glyndebourne-style ritual established, with the gardens opening at 4pm, and an 85-minute interval for dinner. Dress was not as formal as Glyndebourne, but still pretty smart.

Its founder Leonard Ingrams’s policy was to stage operatic rarities, and his eye for performing talent led to the establishment of an artistic policy that has held to this day. The list of now-famous stars who started off at Garsington is long and distinguished.