ANYONE who has been to the opera at Bampton’s glorious Deanery garden will almost certainly have succumbed to its Glyndebourne-esque charm.

What is extraordinary about Bampton Opera is that in a couple of decades it has grown from an amateur group to a professional company that has earned the respect of the sometimes sniffy classical music establishment and put itself firmly on the al fresco opera map.

Even more extraordinary is the fact that its founders, husband and wife Jeremy Gray and Gilly French, somehow juggle the running of the company around full-time teaching jobs.

“I suppose we like to be kept busy,” Gilly says, with enormous understatement.

“At the time of the opera we have wonderful voluntary help, and we have a part-time administrator who keeps things ticking over.”

“It would be nice to be slightly less busy,” Jeremy concedes, “but we are just active people, I suppose.”

We are sitting in the front room of their cottage in Bampton, which has been their home since 1991. They met in the late 1980s as colleagues at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, but now both work in London — Gilly teaches chemistry at Westminster School, while Jeremy teaches art and history of art at Queen’s College.

“I’ve very committed to teaching,” Gilly says. “I love my job. But I’ve always done musical things alongside it. I’d been at Westminster for about a year when I was invited to start a chamber choir, which I ran for about 10 years. Now I run one for staff, which is actually about half staff and half people from outside, and it’s got a fantastic reputation for the quality of the sound.”

Unsurprisingly, Gilly’s passion for music is rooted in her childhood. She played the piano from a young age, somewhat reluctantly, but nevertheless discovered a love for music.

“I took up the violin when I was 11 and completely fell for it, and fell for the orchestra and the world of classical music.

“I started singing lessons as an undergraduate and it was something that felt so right and that I really wanted to do. That’s all stayed with me ever since.”

Jeremy’s childhood was similarly musical; he played the piano from the age of six, and quickly absorbed his father’s love for composers such as Dvorák, Beethoven, Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

Then at university he discovered a taste for opera.

“When we set up Bampton, the jigsaw pieces came together, because I realised that one of my father’s great interests had been stage design. My parents had met on the amateur stage. So coming to opera was putting together various family links, I suppose.”

The opera company arose from Gilly’s desire to do Handel’s Acis and Galatea.

“Around the time we moved to Bampton, there was quite a fashion for doing outdoor concerts in people’s gardens. The idea of Acis and Galatea came up because I had wanted to do it for a long time, an the idea of the Deanery garden came up because it’s so lovely and it helped establish our love for the place.

“We never intended to start an opera company. We just thought we’d do the one performance and we found we had something we couldn’t let go.”

As with many small companies, obtaining the necessary funding is always a headache, but Jeremy and Gilly are proud of the fact that they nevertheless achieve a high artistic standard.

“I think people who go to some of the bigger companies don’t realize that we are equal in standard,” Jeremy says.

“Obviously we can’t put on incredibly lavish, complex productions, but in terms of the musical and dramatic standard we are very, very good.”

One of the things that marked Bampton out early on was their championing of little-known gems of the operatic repertoire — something that is now becoming more popular, but was virtually unheard of 20 years ago.

“We had gone to a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and they were doing operatic excerpts from late 18th-century composers,” Gilly recalls.

“We thought first of all how lovely the music was, and secondly that nobody else specialised in this repertory. So I think it was there that the idea was born.”

“I think in a way we were pioneering,” adds Jeremy. “In some ways we still are, because although there are plenty of groups doing rare baroque music, the classical period — the second half of the 18th century — is still quite under-explored.”

This year’s offering is Mozart’s La Finta Semplice, written when the composer was 12. “The title is untranslatable!” Jeremy laughs.

“It’s sort of The Fake Simpleton, but it doesn’t really mean that, because simpleton is not quite the right expression. So we came up with the English title of Pride and Pretence.

“It doesn’t compare with Mozart’s mature operas, but it is extraordinary music — fresh, characterful, very melodious, lots of orchestra interest, really delightful. It’s not a great story — it’s a fairly typical 18th-century comic opera, with a bit of deceit and trying to manipulate various people into various marriages, but it is lots of fun.”

As always, Gilly and Jeremy have brought together an impressive cast that includes five Bampton regulars and two singers who are new to the company, together with professional conductor Andrew Griffiths and professional musicians.

The production will follow the traditional pattern of opening in Bampton before moving on to Westonbirt in Gloucestershire and St John’s Smith Square in London, but this year will also appear for the first time at Bury Court in Surrey.

The company will also be at the Holywell Music Room in Oxford in November for the public final of the newly-launched singing competition for professional and student singers aged between 21 and 30.

The winner will get a cash prize and the possibility of a London recital. Meanwhile, Jeremy and Gilly hope that audiences turn out for La Finta Semplice in the famous Deanery garden this weekend.

“It really is the most wonderful event,” Gilly says. “What is most important to us is that there is a convivial atmosphere and that it’s accessible to everybody, and I think we get that right.”

  • Bampton Festival Opera performs Mozart's La Finta Semplice (Pride and Pretence) at The Deanery Garden, Bampton, on Friday, July 19, and Saturday, July 20, at 7pm. For more details and to book tickets, see bamptonopera.org or call 01993 851142. 
  • Members of the Orchestra of Bampton Classical Opera will play string quartets by Haydn, Barber and Mozart at St Mary’s Church, in Bampton, on Saturday, July 20. Tickets, priced £5, are available on the door.