Garsington Opera began its history of performances at Garsington Manor with a 1989 production — ‘bought in’ from Opera 80 — of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, and it is fitting that it should now be ending its long series of summer festivals there with another — not least because it has become the work most closely associated with the manor, having also been given there in 1993, 2000 and 2005.

The last of these productions, from director John Cox under star conductor Jane Glover, was especially well-received, with loud applause, I recall, for the judicious extension of the action in Act IV into the glorious garden that is so much part of Garsington’s special appeal. Appropriately, a revival of this has been selected for the final farewell to the manor. Performances span the runs of the season’s other two operas — Rossini’s Armida and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The last is on July 3.

Under conductor Douglas Boyd, this tuneful, good-humoured work is heard at its best, with strong performances in every one of its major roles. Swedish mezzo Anna Grevelius is outstanding as a cheeky, sex-mad Cherubino — pictured (right) getting some of his adolescent bum fluff removed by James Oldfield’s Figaro.

In a production which properly makes much (especially in Robert Perdziola’s stylish if sometimes cumbersome designs) of class distinctions, there is a subtly drawn (and impeccably sung) Count Almaviva from Grant Doyle, two suitably saucy members of the servant class in Sophie Bevan’s invitingly melon-bosomed Susanna and Mary Bevan’s Barbarina, and vulgarity writ large in the tastelessly caparisoned parvenu Marcellina (the always excellent Jean Rigby).

The last’s pantomimic costumes add greatly to the comedy, especially when she is in the company of her male supporters, Doctor Bartolo (Conal Coad) and the preposterous Don Basilio (Daniel Norman). What a contrast to Kishani Jayasinghe’s lovely Countess, in all her good-natured serenity!

This is a blissful end to 22 years of summer delight at the manor.