Opera Holland Park, which performs under canvas each summer against the ruins of Holland House, holds its only black tie evening of the year at Drapers' Hall on Tuesday 10 November 2026.
Opera Holland Park’s principals sing over dinner at Drapers’ Hall in the City of London on Tuesday 10 November 2026, at the company’s only black tie evening of the year.
The company was founded in 1996 and performs in a temporary canopied theatre raised each summer against the ruins of Holland House. The house was a Jacobean mansion of 1605, gutted by incendiary bombs in one night in September 1940.
The London County Council bought the grounds in 1952, and Kensington and Chelsea put the first canopy over the performance space in 1987. The company grew out of that arrangement and is now an independent charity.
For nine weeks a year it plays under canvas in a park. The gala is the one evening its singers perform at close range for a single room, a livery hall the public rarely sees inside.
Singers, creatives and company sit at the tables rather than apart from them. The Young Artists scheme, which gives emerging singers principal roles across the summer season, puts those performers at the gala table too.
Proceeds go to the Inspire education programme and to the 2027 season.