…of the Christie family and welcomes evening-garbed opera lovers who flock to picnic and enjoy world-class performances. This year you can still see Carmen (opens July 6) and the charming Hänsel und Gretel (opens July 20), while for the more adventurous there’s the world premiere of Love and Other Demons (August 10), by Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös and based on Gabriel García Márquez’s novella set in 18th-century Colombia.

In Glyndebourne’s wake comes a whole flotilla of opera festivals that are bound to have something to appeal to you. If you’re in London, how about trying Opera Holland Park, which takes place in a temporary (but comfortable) open-air theatre abutting the ruins of the Jacobean mansion that once stood there. The festival has a reputation for showcasing forgotten operas alongside more regular repertoire; blood-and-thunder verismo pieces are a particular speciality. Holland Park also showcases exciting young singers on their way up the career ladder, so there are some vocal thrills and spills. This year’s enticing rarities are Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta (opens July 25), and the incredibly ambitious La Gioconda by Puccini’s teacher Ponchielli (opens July 22), one of those operas everyone knows a tune from, even if they don’t realise it, thanks to Disney’s use of the ballet in Fantasia – but don’t expect to see dancing ostriches and hippos (unless you’ve really overdone the picnic beforehand).

But if you want to escape the Big Smoke, how about heading out to Garsington in Oxfordshire? Another country house opera experience, founded in 1989 by the late Leonard Ingrams, this festival has a strong reputation for exploring its own operatic byway – lesser-known works by famous composers: Richard Strauss has been a particular speciality. The operas are performed on the terrace adjoining the 17th-century manor house, and like Glyndebourne, the gardens are famously beautiful, and a favourite spot for picnicking in the long interval. This year you can still catch Stravinsky’s neo-Classical The Rake’s Progress (opens July 19), with a strong cast directed by the up-and-coming producer Olivia Fuchs.

Grange Park, in Hampshire, offers more country house opera, with performances taking place in an orangery in the grounds of the ruined early 19th-century mansion. Some performances are staged nearby at Neville Holt, where buildings and gardens are being restored to their former glory, and where the operas are performed in a small theatre within the stable courtyard. This year you are in time to see Verdi’s crowing glory of a masterpiece, Falstaff (opens July 12 at Nevill Holt), with which the composer finished his career. It’s a genuinely comic opera, and such an intimate setting should guarantee a wonderful night out. And if you want to steal a march on the Last Night of the Proms, Welsh wizard Bryn Terfel is giving a concert at Nevill Holt too (July 11).

Breaking the country house mould, if hardly metropolitan,…

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