Last Updated on June 13, 2026
A Transcendental Meditation
4.0 out of 5.0 starsLast night saw the world premiere of Sir John Tavener’s Krishna at Grange Park Opera in Surrey. Tavener created both the music and libretto for this ‘mystical pantomime’ which has an extraordinary backstory. Completed in 2005, the opera remained unperformed until after the composer’s death in 2013, when his widow brought it to the attention of King Charles, then the Prince of Wales. Charles and Taverner were friends; his “Song for Athene was performed at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, with both men sharing a spiritual ecumenism. Charles mentioned the work to opera legend Sir David Pountney, then running the Welsh National Opera. Poutney, in turn, took it to the irrepressible Wasfi Kani, the CEO of Grange Park Opera, who, in a co-production with Houston Opera, where it will be staged in Autumn 2027, has now brought it to life.
It was London Unattached’s first visit to Grange Park Opera, a company that shares a similarly convoluted history with Tavener’s work. After a career in finance, Kani became CEO at Garsington Opera in 1992 where she established a name as a creative visionary and fund-raising dynamo. In 1997 she left to found her own festival, Grange Park Opera, housed on the Grange Park site near Alresford in Hampshire and where The Grange Festival still operates as a separate entity. After wrangles with the owners of the property, Grange Park Opera relocated to West Horsley Place, near the nexus of the M25 and A3, a characterful 500-year-old 350-acre estate owned by broadcaster Bamber Gascoigne.
A bespoke horseshoe-shaped ‘Theatre in the Woods’ was created based on the footprint of La Scala, Milan, with acoustics designed to provide a 1.4 second natural reverberation time and seats lifted from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
West Horsley Place has at its heart a Grade 1 listed Manor House with a very special character. It has a wildness about it in contrast to the manicured sleekness of Glyndebourne or Garsington. The topiary is stylishly unkempt, possibly as a tribute to the late Bamber Gascoigne’s hairdo. There are also formal walled gardens, including the charmingly named Crinkle-Crankle Garden and the Rose Garden, in which there are marquees and picnicking areas. The main house contains the Duchess Restaurant where you can book for a three-course meal in the Marquess’ Library, Red Drawing Room or Stone Hall.
Tavener’s compositions are welded to his own spiritual journey and religious explorations with the sound world and aesthetic often being influenced by that of the Orthodox church. Krishna is something different. In thirteen scenes with an additional prologue and epilogue, the opera traces out different episodes from Krishna’s life. In the Hindu mythos, Krishna is the eighth incarnation of Vishnu and, in certain traditions, is regarded as the supreme deity. However, despite its subject matter, stage design and some of its libretto, which veers between English and Sanskrit mantras, the music for Krishna is resolutely non-Indian, being articulated in Tavener’s own musical language. He has created an ethereal soundscape that includes eight flutes (four alto flutes) who playing dancinig motifs. The flautists were originally planned to be suspended in the air to provide a sonic and visual halo around Krishna. Maybe they will have lift-off in Houston? There are string drones, driving timpani figures and transcendental wind and brass textures. As one of the four ages of Krishna sings the words “I’m God” we are presented with a series of major chords, but there is always with a dissonant note disrupting the ecstasy. Philip Glass-like pulsating low strings and brass quavers presage danger, and Tibetan singing bowls glisten through Tavener’s waves of sound.
The composer is quoted as wanting to bring together the spiritual quest element of Mozart’s Magic Flute with the epic mythological sweep of Wagner’s Ring and the ritualistic drama of Keralan Temple theatre. The opera is tightly structured with each scene being set up with a percussive flourish by the Japanese-born onstage drummer Nao Masuda, who scuttles stylishly between three sets of Taiko Drums as well as being a dab hand on the windchimes.
British baritone Ross Ramgobin plays the Celestial Narrator who introduces the action in each scene with a recitative. Ramgobin has developed more heft and gravel in his vocal tone since I last saw him as a sweet-toned but underpowered Schaunard in La Bohème at the Royal Opera House in 2022. The role is more incantatory than virtuosic, and Ramgobin brings out the expressivity in his lines.
As part of what is a creative A-team, director Sir David Pountney has brought in top choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh to work with five dancers who illuminate and act out elements of the narrative using steps taken from contemporary, ballet and Indian classical traditions. They add kinetic energy to what could otherwise be a static experience.
The chorus sits on three levels on what designer Rachana Jadhav has imagined as a Wes Anderson-esque temple structure. Sometimes bouncing up and down like a series of musical jack-in-the-boxes, sometimes veiled with muted vocal tones, they add dense textures to the piece, chanting or singing snaking scalar patterns in canon.
The thirteen scenes are presented as a series of tableaux. The piece starts with a prologue in which Sara Fulgoni’s rich and emotive mezzo-soprano is perfect for the part of Bhumi, a weeping cow crying for help as demons ransack the land.
The boy Krishna appears, evading a murder attempt and sending the perpetrator sorceress to Paradise. As a toddler, he then eats mud in a hilarious scene in which the infant Krishna sings the word ‘mud’ multiple times whilst his mother Yashoda, also sung by Sara Fulgoni, retorts with a fusillade of ‘no no nos’. But when the mother looks in the infant’s mouth, she sees ‘all of heaven and the universe’. There are love stories specifically with two women, Radha and Rukmini, who end up merging into each other and then into Krishna. For those of us brought up in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Krishna is a disconcerting yet attractive figure. Playful, godlike, downright silly and libidinous, he combines the seriousness of purpose of a deity with an ability to seduce and charm. In one scene, he swipes the outfits of some bathing Gopi milkmaids, replicates himself and makes love to them all. In scene five, Krishna dances a sensual dance of desire with Radha, a tantalising and erotic foreplay completely unimaginable for the sombre prophets of the Old and New Testaments.
There is some very fine singing on display from a strong ensemble cast. Rosa Sparks brings her powerful, clear soprano to her role as the child Krishna, and Israeli countertenor Eliran Kadussi is playful and gorgeously toned as the adolescent Krishna. I’m a fan of Welsh tenor Elgan Llyr Thomas, who recently impressed as Ralph Rackstraw in the ENO’s HMS Pinafore and as François in A Quiet Place at the RBO’s Linbury Theatre. As Krishna, as a young man, he has a glorious ring to his voice and is surely one to watch. The adult Krishna is sung by Canadian Baritone Brett Polegato, who brings a more sombre edge to the proceedings.
British/American soprano Julia Sitkovetsky brings her dramatic but well-controlled coloratura to the part of Radha, Krishna’s Childhood Sweetheart, and British-Irish-Turkish soprano Nazan Fikret is sensational as Rukmini, Krishna’s Wife. Their duet as they merge into oneness is a dramatic clash of major tonality and chromatic tension with a series of semitonal clashes leavening the harmonic dough.
Conductor Mark Shanahan gets a splendid sound out of The Gascoigne Orchestra. The players, who used to be the Garsington house band, and singers seemed very comfortable and well-rehearsed for this complicated world premiere. Sir David Pountney’s direction has created a visually sumptuous and enjoyable spectacle that may not appeal to some of the mainstream opera audience, but certainly entertained the Grange Park Opera crowd.
Does it all sound a bit nuts? Yes, it does. Tavener is reaching for the essence of the divine, and for him, art is a space where we try to manifest the unsayable and explore the deepest metaphysical questions. Krishna could easily be critiqued as a Hindu cosplay, a mish-mash of cultural appropriation enabled by the private funding at an arts institution that services an elite. There is so much art that is seen through the narrow lens of personal neurosis or that bears a naked political agenda driven by funding requirements that a work that attempts to touch on some of the deeper questions surely becomes a necessary luxury. It is a credit to Wasfi Kani and her team that she has taken on such a project.
Production Photos Credit: Marc Brenner
Grange Park Photos Credit: Dr Adrian York
Krishna
4 June – 2 July 2026
Grange Park Opera
West Horsley Place
KT24 6AN
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