English National Opera and Grange Park Opera announce three-year partnership

English National Opera (ENO) and Grange Park Opera (GPO) have today announced the formation of a partnership, beginning in June 2018. Each year ENO’s award-winning Orchestra will play for productions presented by Grange Park Opera at West Horsley Place. West Horsley Place, the first opera house to be built in the UK in the 21^st century, is the new home of Grange Park Opera and will open on 8 June 2017.

Described as ‘the finest opera orchestra in the country’ (The Stage), the ENO Orchestra is at the heart of the company’s artistic life. The repertoire that they perform is extremely diverse, ranging from baroque opera to world premieres. Their performances are regularly broadcast by BBC Radio 3 and have been screened live to cinemas worldwide as part of ENO Screen. In 2016 the ENO Orchestra and ENO Chorus were joint winners of the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera.

ENO’s Music Director, Martyn Brabbins, commented on the partnership:

’The orchestra of English National Opera is widely renowned for its musically dramatic contribution to countless successful opera productions at our home, the London Coliseum.  Grange Park Opera, in its spectacular new theatre-in-the- woods, has extended an invitation for our Orchestra to perform with them, and I’m delighted by this fantastic opportunity for both ENO, and GPO to enhance their already-excellent artistic profiles.’

Wasfi Kani, Founder and CEO of Grange Park Opera, said:

‘The curtain has raised on a new act for Grange Park Opera, West Horsley Place is an exceptional location: its beauty and historical glamour, its atmosphere and location, all add up to a magical setting for a fairytale that has come true. Part of that fairytale is this collaboration with the ENO Orchestra whom I’ve admired for 40 years. I am thrilled.’