In praise of Glyndebourne: the Sussex Downs haven remains country-house opera’s gold standard

It’s now high season for country-house opera, and if there’s one dream to which all new contenders to the ranks of this art form aspire, it’s to be “the new Glyndebourne”. Yet the genesis of that exclusive haven on the Sussex Downs was a modest affair, and its development has been a tale with unexpected twists.

Its birth in 1933 was noted in The Daily Telegraph under the faintly surprised headline, “THEATRE BUILT BY OWNER: Mr John Christie’s ‘Private Bayreuth’”. “An interesting venture,” opined Musical Opinion cautiously, “the building of a miniature opera house, combining beauty with the last word in utility, in the heart of the Sussex Downs.”

And the idea caught on. “Whoever cares for the supreme things of opera supremely well done,” said The Times, “and can afford, perhaps at the expense of some other pleasure, to cultivate their taste, will find their answer there.” That was after the curtain had fallen on the first Glyndebourne Figaro.

But there were grumbles at the expense. When Idomeneo got its first professional British staging at Glyndebourne in 1951 the London Evening News looked into its wallet and got cross: “Our Festival visitor will find that a visit for two persons, taking into consideration railway and coach fares, the price of the seats, the dinner and other amenities, will leave very little out of a £10 note. Is the entertainment of a quality to justify such expenditure? With Idomeneo, definitely not.”

Moreover, that put-down came prefaced by a snide suggestion one can still hear today: “Glyndebourne Opera is a rendezvous of fashion – some have called it by a harsher name – for which musical people, and people who wish to be thought musical, climb into evening dress early in the afternoon.” But that was just sour grapes, because – as recordings of the early days incontrovertibly prove – performance standards were stratospherically high from the very beginning. And that was thanks to the fact that Glyndebourne was led, during its first decade, by the brightest operatic exiles from Nazi Germany.

Yet its impulse came from a tormented family history. Founder John Christie’s childhood was a parody of upper-crust awfulness: while his deranged father beat his overprotective mother (the singer Rosamond Wallop), John himself got beaten at Eton and was crippled in a riding accident; he also lost the sight in one eye while playing rackets.

Hence was forged the iron will which – in tandem with Lady Rosamond’s enthusiasm – gave birth to Glyndebourne, and made exclusivity its fetish: Christie once remarked that he would, if he could, “have surrounded it with barbed wire to keep out the unworthy”. Habitually wearing lederhosen, and labelling his lavatories Damen and Herren, Christie was a Germanophile and homophobe, which latter trait may explain the fact that Benjamin Britten and Glyndebourne never got on, at least in the early days.

But Christie would do anything to defend good art and good causes: he helped set up a children’s theatre which was far ahead of its time, and he offered his opera house as an evacuation centre for London children during the Blitz.

open image in gallery

He also let it be known that Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress – over whose British premiere he presided – was not at all to his taste, but that didn’t stop him from championing it. And if you look at this year’s programme, you will see that the final work of the season is that self-same work, now presented in its classic David Hockney-designed staging.

Indeed, if Christie were to revisit his creation nine decades on, he would be well pleased. He’d be impressed by the auditorium, and he would approve of the way the place has kept faith with Mozart; he would be gratified to see the descendants of his original sheep grazing near the picnickers in the field beyond his manor-house ha-ha. He would have been pleased to find that productions are as fastidiously prepared as they ever were, and that his festival’s commitment to young artists is still strong. He would have felt entirely vindicated that his creation has become the gold standard for what we now call “country-house opera”.

This season’s offerings are – with one exception – well up to standard, with one so astonishing that people are almost ready to kill to get tickets. This is Barry Kosky’s production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. I’ve never known an operatic tragedy absorbed with such rapt attention; I’ve never seen an audience looking so stunned as it quietly files out.

The story – a true one – could not be simpler: 16 Carmelite nuns are surrounded by the mob during Robespierre’s reign of terror, but they unanimously choose execution rather than renouncing their vows; their dialogues concern the benefits of self-sacrifice, and the necessity for standing unanimously together against infidels. The end of the work sees the victims file out one by one, each singing a Salve Regina which is savagely cut short by the sound of the falling guillotine blade.

Kosky, who describes himself as a Jewish atheist, regards this work as going deeply into themes and ideas we see daily on television. His production contains fleeting references to Auschwitz (piles of shoes left under the scaffold), the Maoist terror (shaven heads and accusatory placards hung round necks), and this week the émeutes in Nanterre, but what he has done with it goes way beyond any facile badge of “relevance”. His sealed world of the convent is brutally torn apart by a crowd maddened with bloodlust, his protagonists faltering and propping each other up with a visceral mixture of fear and defiant courage.

open image in gallery

Kosky’s production is quite simply a masterpiece: it has the cruel rawness of revolutionary reality, but at the same time every scene has an unforgettably hieratic quality. And that quality is movingly echoed by the musical direction of Robin Ticciati, whose brass-dominated little orchestra exudes by turns tenderness and savagery, working as though it’s one single pulsating organism. Headed by soprano Sally Matthews, every singer in the cast deserves an accolade. Those who can’t get tickets should listen to this same cast presenting a concert version of the work in Prom 31 at the Royal Albert Hall on 7 August.

The other masterpiece of this season is Peter Hall’s much-revived production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, premiered in 1981 and is still a very hot ticket. This work may be a free-ranging fantasy, but it’s anchored in a logical framework that peels away the mundane to reveal unexpected and sometimes forbidden desires.

The palace where the action begins is infinitely less real than the surrounding woods, which stand for the unconscious. The dramatis personae divide into three groups representing three levels of existence – the fairies led by Oberon, the two pairs of lovers, and the Mechanicals – with each group being given a musical style suited to its role in the drama.

open image in gallery

And with lighting designer Paul Pyant applying his protean art to John Bury’s misty foliage, the visual magic keeps exquisitely in step with the musical magic – the tinkly celesta introducing the infant fairies, and the cellos sliding up and down their scale in tandem with the hanging creepers which frame the stage.

There’s not one weak link in this musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. Countertenor Tim Mead presides with relaxed authority as Oberon, tussling with Liv Redpath’s ice-cold Tytania, while Oliver Barlow, as a diminutive Puck, sows mischief between them. The four young lovers pine, fight, and make peace with infectious intensity, while the Mechanicals’ scenes are delivered with real comic finesse.

The season’s one failure is Mariame Clément’s new production of Don Giovanni, decently sung but directorially erratic, both confused and confusing. Its other hit, meanwhile, is a lovely revival of Annabel Arden’s brilliantly judged account of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. Everything about this production is delectable, from Lez Brotherston’s sunlit designs to the singing and acting of Nardus Williams as Adina and Liparit Avetisyan as the accidental hero; Dr Dulcamara’s circus-performer sidekick Maxime Nourissat brings a hilarious new dimension to this classic farce.

Four shows done, two more to go in this glittering season. Adele Thomas’s new production of Handel’s Semele sounds interesting, and the revival of John Cox’s Hockney-designed production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress will guarantee packed houses once more. Yes, Glyndebourne is still the gold standard.