More details have been confirmed for the 2025 event…
Today, The Grange Festival has announced the full cast for Queen at the Opera (5, 8, 19 June) and Bernstein on Broadway (26, 29 June), bringing together some of the greatest performers from Opera and the West End.
Queen at the Opera is a one-of-a-kind concert marking 50 years of Queen’s legendary album A Night at the Opera, which introduced the world to Bohemian Rhapsody, and celebrates the connections between opera and the music of Queen and Freddie Mercury. Following two sell-out performances, an additional date has been added on 19 June.
West End and rock singers Jon Boydon (Heathers the Musical, Mamma Mia!); Peter Eldridge; Jenna Lee-James (Disney’s Frozen); and Rachael Wooding (We Will Rock You, Standing at the Sky’s Edge), join multi-skilled opera singers Jordan Pitts (featured on France’s Got Talent ‘La France a un incroyable talent’ as drag persona Creatine Price); Nikola Printz (San Francisco Opera, Opera Memphis); and Ann Toomey (Glyndebourne, Lyric Opera of Chicago) in an eclectic blending of repertoire which highlights the connections between these music genres. Queen at the Opera is conducted by Edwin Outwater (5, 8 June) and Pete Harrison (19 June) and features the BBC Concert Orchestra.
Bernstein on Broadway presents thrilling selections from the great composer’s theatrical output, including West Side Story, Candide, On the Town and Wonderful Town.
Musical theatre stars Julian Ovenden (South Pacific), Elèna Gyasi (Mean Girls, Six), Gabriela Garcia (In the Heights, Rent), and Lewis Francis (Miss Saigon, Mamma Mia!) join opera singers Claudia Boyle (Opéra national de Paris, Royal Opera, Semperoper Dresden) and Trystan Llŷr Griffiths (Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence). The concert features the Welsh National Opera Orchestra and The Grange Festival Chorus led by Grammy Award-winning conductor Karen Kamensek (Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera, Semperoper Dresden).
Alongside these genre-blending concert programmes, The Grange Festival presents three staged opera productions, two more concerts, and an evening of dance.:
- Opera includes a new La Traviata which is the bestselling production The Grange Festival has ever presented and a new Baroque-meets-street-dance staging of Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes, presented in collaboration with leading baroque ensemble Cappella Mediterranea, who will take the work to Teatro Real in Madrid and Teatro alla Scala in Milan,
- The final casting for a stylish new production of Die Fledermaus performed in English has also been announced with Andrew Hamilton joining the cast as Eisenstein and drag queen Myra Dubois performing the role of Frosh.
- Concerts also include the Meath Gala, a star-studded recital in aid of The Meath Epilepsy Charity and Summertime Swing, a jazz evening of American Songbook classics from Dutch jazz sensation Fay Claassen and the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw.
- The 2025 dance programme is a sold-out double bill from Ballet Black featuring work from choreographers Chanel DaSilva and Sophie Laplane.
This first programme from the new Chief Executive, Tyler Stoops, has already driven record ticket sales for the Festival, tracking 76% ahead of paid ticket sales at this time last year. In addition to the ambitious change in programming, pricing for the Festival has been entirely redesigned, with a broader range of prices available, over 5,000 tickets priced under £100 (more than four times the number made available in 2024), and full price tickets as low as £12. Following the success of member and public bookings for the 2025 Festival, additional performances were added for La Traviata (4 July) and Queen at the Opera (19 June).
A new free-to-join Under 36 Tickets programme for young adults offers tickets at £5, £25 and £45 for 18-25s, and £15, £35, and £55 for 26-35s to select performances. More than 750 young people have secured tickets through the scheme so far, which also offers half-price tickets on the new audience coach from Winchester, making the Festival more accessible to audiences travelling from London, or from Southampton and the Southwest.
The Grange Festival
4 June – 6 July 2025
The Grange, Alresford SO24 9TZ
thegrangefestival.co.uk
The start time is 5pm for Monday to Saturday performances and 4pm for Sunday performances.
