If I’ve learnt one thing over the past year, it’s that the big London houses have serious rivals in the strangest of places. I’ve been wowed by great productions and fabulous singers – especially sopranos – in Wexford, Hamburg, little Longborough and most recently, of all places, Bryanston School in Dorset. And I know I’ve hardly scratched the surface.

Wexford in southern Ireland embraces opera for just two weeks each autumn, but its mission – to reclaim forgotten works – produced the highlight of my operatic year in Jessica Muirhead’s Vreli in Delius’s unjustly neglected A Village Romeo and Juliet. A thrilling soprano talent, I noted.

Hamburg is not seen as the operatic hub of Germany, but the excellent Simone Young has this summer staged a festival of all 10 of Wagner’s major works over a three-week Wagner-Wahn period of madness. I saw Das Rheingold, with the Rhinemaidens frolicking on a four-poster (the ‘bed’ of the Rhine) and lots of psychology, and wished I could have stayed for the rest.

I did see a complete Ring though – the unlikeliest of all, in a field in Gloucestershire, where Martin Graham’s 500-seater miracle showed that small can be beautiful, even for Wagner. I’ve written about Longborough’s amazing Ring in the September issue of Gramophone, out on August 20. In its own way, it was as worthy an enterprise as Barenboim’s starry concert staging at the Proms. Anthony Negus is a true Wagnerian conductor and Rachel Nicholls a smashing young Brünnhilde, with bags of development ahead of her. Stylish Lee Bisset, meanwhile, took on three, deliciously differentiated, roles – Freia (unforgiving of the gods who’d betrayed her and left her at the mercy of the giants Fafner and Fasolt), Sieglinde and Gutrune.

And she wasn’t finished. In no time at all she was in Dorset for her fourth major Wagnerian role of the summer – a dreamy Senta in a riveting Der Fliegende Holländer by Paul Carr. This was my first taste of Dorset Opera, whose huge 80-strong chorus is made up of amateurs, but you wouldn’t know it from the quality of their performance. The verve and vigour with which they undertake their task is remarkable. The stars of this Dutchman may have been Bisset and a splendid Mark Doss in the title role – were we really in a countryside school rather than the major opera house where these two clearly belong? – but the focused enthusiasm of Nicolas Mansfield’s chorus is what makes Dorset Opera special.

Two performances of the Dutchman were accompanied by three Traviatas, the principals double-cast, in a new production commissioned from one Dr Jonathan Miller, who at 79 has lost none of his wit or savoir faire, despite alienating the big houses who will no longer work with him. It’s their loss, by the way. English National Opera’s three-opera retrospective last season reminded us just how good a director he is – who could ever forget his Mikado (or indeed his famous ENO ‘Mafia’ Rigoletto, sadly no longer in the rep)?

Miller focuses on what’s happening inside his characters’ heads. When he talks to you his hands are quietly but continually illustrating what he’s saying. He has no time for modern directorial fads, or indeed directors (he’s not interested in other interpretations and has refused to go to an opera for 10 years), and likes to leave a piece like Traviata in the era Verdi wrote it. For Miller, less is more. He mocks the likes of Angela Gheorghiu (who can’t stand him) dancing round the stage when her Violetta is about to die of consumption and confines both his Violettas here to their deathbeds for the entirety of the last act.

Dorset’s second-cast Violetta was Wexford’s Vreli! But with Verdi’s most celebrated heroine Jessica Muirhead is competing with every star soprano who’s ever lived. She eagerly embraces Miller’s philosophy – ‘I was so excited to work with him,’ she told me. ‘He’s the coolest of cool!’ Her first Violetta, and the characterisation is impressive already. With the benefit of a dress rehearsal a few timing niggles would have been ironed out.

The other Violetta was Polish-born Anna Jeruc-Kopec, who’d had more time with the orchestra. Another splendid singer on the festival circuit, she didn’t much like being confined to her bed. Perhaps she’ll do a Gheorghiu when she reprises the role in studio performances… at this year’s Wexford festival! Yes, it’s a small world on the festival circuit.

It was quite a coup for Dorset to secure Miller, who strips the sets to the bare essentials – less on occasion. It was a joy to see him still ruffling feathers on the operatic stage. The oldies can certainly show how’s it’s done!

Wexford, Longborough and Dorset are among younger festivals that consistently punch above their weight and show what can be done with limited resources, bags of enthusiasm…and singers quite good enough, given half a chance, to break into the top rank.