There are a few operas I would go almost anywhere to see, and one of them is Claudio Monteverdi’s biting, joyous satire on imperial Rome, an operatic I, Claudius, written in the happy days when words still mattered in opera. So I was delighted it was being performed at Woodhouse Copse in the Surrey hills. This place is part of the summer open-air opera crowd, holding its main productions in September, but in May, with the rhododendrons in bloom, the Gertrude Jekyll gardens are at their most gorgeous and the rustic Arts and Crafts house built by Oliver Hill in 1926 is beautifully framed. The little outfit has been going for 15 years but this was my first visit.Having created one of the first shots at the new form of opera – L’Orfeo, in 1607, for the court at Mantua &ndash