Near-perfect weather has supplied a special extra this year for outings to country house opera.

It did for me last Friday and Saturday for a double dose of Italian genius from Longborough Festival Opera in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale followed by Verdi’s Rigoletto (reviewed on The Oxford Times’s website).

Pasquale, incidentally, was the first opera I saw as a schoolboy of 12, in a touring version featuring costumed singers accompanied by a piano.

It was productions such as this, I learned from Lizzie Graham’s programme note, that led her and husband Martin to found LFO.

The night before Longborough, I was at Magdalen College School, where more than 1,000 people watched Cosi fan tutte, in a glorious outdoor setting by the Cherwell.

Filmed at Garsington Opera, it can be seen again in the company’s Opera For All season at Waddesdon Manor on September 3.

Before curtain-up, MSC’s Master, Tim Hands, hosted a party for supporters of the school’s arts festival.

Next year, he told us, this event is to take on independent governance.

Present at the party were sopranos Andreea Soare and Kathryn Rudge who play Cosi’s Fiordiligi and Dorabella. Both told me of their delight of being with the company for their first time.

In view of the furore over the rape scene in Covent Garden’s production of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, I suppose I should have asked about the criticism of the sexy antics in Cosi, including Guglielmo’s brandishing of Dorabella’s knickers to signify her acquiescence in rumpy-pumpy. But this only occurred to me later.

By then, we were at another party to launch SatMatCo at the Old Fire Station. Rosemarie was surprised to be told by someone on the way in: “I’m a very good friend of gays.” This was before she met one of the company founders, Gaye Poole.