WORMSLEY, England - They sit on the grass in their posh frocks and dinner jackets, eating picnics between the two acts of Rossini's Il turco in Italia. It's summer in England, and the open-air opera has returned.

Rain or shine, music-lovers bearing champagne and blankets are flocking in their thousands to glorious rural locations across Britain to enjoy the delights of Mozart, Wagner or Donizetti.

"It's freezing! But people are so mad in England that they love it," remarked director Martin Duncan at his production of Rossini's comedy at the Garsington Opera, one of the country's leading open-air ventures.

More intimate than the long-established Glyndebourne, Garsington has been running since 1989 but this year moved to a new, more glamorous venue.

Complaints from neighbors at its founding home of Garsington Manor in Oxfordshire, northwest of London, forced it to move a few kilometers down the road onto the beautiful Wormsley Estate, which is owned by the Getty family.

Amid the extensive park that already hosts a world-famous cricket ground, the organizers have commissioned an elegant temporary pavilion with space for 600 people to watch the opera and enjoy nature at the same time.

Throughout June and July, the Japanese-inspired structure will play host to Rossini, as well as Mozart's The Magic Flute and Vivaldi's rarely performed work La verita in cimento.

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 06/18/2011 page8)