When Mike and Vanessa Woodward step on to the floating stage at Sunningwell Festival next week, as the Pirate King and Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance, it will be an emotional return to their roots — for it was here, exactly ten years ago, that they first conceived the idea of forming their own opera company.

Not many married couples have the luxury of working together, but Mike and Vanessa have now spent a decade doing just that — and have clearly loved every minute of it.

“I always thought it would be a long-term thing,” says Mike. “We both just love opera and performing — we get such a buzz from it. We had been performing with a local amateur organisation, and getting very frustrated with the kind of repertoire that they normally put on, and the way it was run, so we thought we’d do our own thing.”

Vanessa added: “We enjoyed getting the chance to sing onstage with a full orchestra, but we were going to see other things and realised there was more potential in doing it more intimately. We went to see Pavilion Opera doing Tosca in a drawing room, with just a string quartet and piano, and there was Scarpia falling dead at my feet — I thought, this is really exciting! It was more intimate and available, and I think that inspired us to do something a bit different.”

It was at Sunningwell that they came up with the name for their new company.

“We were fairly new to the whole business, I suppose,” says Mike, “and we said you can do opera anywhere — you don’t have to be in a theatre.”

Since then, the company has lived up to its name by performing in just about every different kind of venue you can think of — from small theatres to village halls, in pubs and restaurants, on the river (their opera cruises, launched two years ago, are still going strong) and even on ice (Arias on Ice, first performed in 2006, is a popular Christmas event).

Their unusual venues have been reflected in an equally unusual repertoire, and the company has established a reputation for unearthing rarely-performed gems, as well as commissioning new works.

Walton’s The Bear, Berkeley’s The Dinner Engagement and Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Medium and The Telephone have been some of their highlights, as well as the premiere of Debbie Rose’s The Selfish Giant and a bold updating of Don Giovanni.

For their tenth anniversary, though, Mike and Vanessa have opted for a very well-known piece — Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, an appropriate choice for Sunningwell’s watery setting.

This will be their first full G&S opera, with their first chorus (the East Oxford Community Choir) and their first small orchestra (the Pavlova Wind Quintet).

“We’ve entitled it The Last Night of the Pirates on the Pond, so we can end with the traditional Last Night things,” says Vanessa. “It will be a celebration of the British Isles, so there will be national songs from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England, with a bit of flag-waving at the end, and a sing-a-long with Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem.”

“We’re going to utilise the pond,” says Mike. “The water’s there, so we’re going to integrate that into how we stage it. We’ve also just come up with an arrangement with Oxford Carts, who transport people in rickshaws. They’ve been taking customers to our boat trips, so we’re going to incorporate that into the show as well.”

Appearing alongside Mike and Vanessa are Opera Anywhere regulars Jeremy Vinogradov as Major-General Stanley and Amy Webber as Mabel, with newcomer Mikael Onelius playing Frederic.

lSunningwell Festival runs from May 28 to June 6. Opera Anywhere’s The Last Night of the Pirates on the Pond is on June 3 and 5. Visit sunningwell.com. Box office: 0845 6801926 or wegottickets.com/sunningwell