Don Giovanni, Corsini Gardens, Florence: 'The central couple were dream casting'

The New Generation Festival, which has just had its second season, has an imaginative artistic policy

The New Generation Festival has opera at its core

If your aristocratic family has been top of the tree in Italy for the past six hundred years, furnishing a long string of ministers of state, cardinals, and even a pope, and if you also own the most beautiful private garden in Florence, how do you cap it all? The solution which Prince Filippo and Princess Giorgiana Corsini have hit on is to found a new arts festival, with opera at its core.

Italy may not have as many opera houses as Germany does, but it runs a close second, so any new operatic venture there needs a USP of some sort. And I think the New Generation Festival, which has just had its second season, may have found one in the shape of a uniquely charming venue and an imaginative artistic policy. The fact that its creative team is by and large British sounds an additional original note in a country which has always assumed that opera pre-eminently belongs to it and no one else.

In fact the stage in the Corsini gardens is strikingly reminiscent of the one in Holland Park: the colonnaded frontage of a baronial mansion forms a natural stage, with a steeply-raked auditorium creating intimacy. It’s open-air, with no fall-back for the summer rain which in Florence can be torrential, so if the worst happens everyone decamps to a nearby covered venue (instruments must not get wet). And you get a nice sense of place thanks to the va et vient of people in the surrounding apartment buildings.

This year’s festival made up in quality for its modest size, with its centrepiece being a production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni showcasing a mostly young and unknown cast, and if Simon Schnorr was under-characterised in the title role, the other principals – three of whom were Armenian - were outstanding.

Roman Lyulkin’s Leporello outsang his master with commanding authority and a fine sense of line, while Vazgen Gazaryan brought the right sort of resonance as the Commendatore. Louise Kemeny’s winningly sweet Zerlina was nicely partnered by Arshak Kuzikyan’s vulnerable Masetto, and the central couple were dream casting: Anush Hovhannisyan’s Donna Anna was sung with infinite grace, while Josh Lovell partnered her as Don Ottavio with an expressive purity of tone which we all too seldom hear.

If Roger Granville’s direction was intermittently stodgy – with a risible representation of the hell awaiting the chief protagonist – these singers made up for it through their sheer charisma. Maximilian Fane’s musical direction was persuasive if somewhat under-energised, and the amplification of the voices was disturbing, in that their sound never seemed to come from where they were standing. That problem at least could be quickly sorted out.

The following nights were in their own way just as successful: a symphony concert starring the young British violinist Charlie Siem as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, and a very stylish production of Shakespeare’s Henry V directed by Rebecca Steel, with William Walton’s score as live accompaniment. Christopher Palmer’s arrangement of Walton’s film treatment was the one used here, and with the orchestra under Jonathan Santagada’s direction it worked a treat.

Added to all this were voice classes and an assortment of fringe events. Anyone planning to visit Florence next summer might profitably make a date with this festival, for – as the French say of cordon-bleu restaurants in remote places – vaut le voyage.