Photography by Richard Lewisohn
She’s the doyenne of the country house opera scene in Britain, but for now, Wasfi Kani thoughts are focused on door hinges. ‘I’ve just seen some lovely doors in the new theatre at the Menuhin School,’ she tells me, just back from a trip to Manchester to see the Menuhin Hall. ‘The parliament hinges are just gorgeous.’
Kani’s current preoccupation with fixtures and fittings is understandable: she is is in the process of putting the finishing touches on the Theatre in the Woods, Britain’s newest opera house, in which Grange Park Opera will take up residence this summer. It’s an extraordinary turnaround in the fortunes of a company that Kani founded 20 years ago and which was made homeless at the end of last summer following the abrupt termination of the lease on its former home at Northington Grange in Hampshire.