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Opera

Glyndebourne’s Ravel double bill comes close to perfection

The clocks and the costumes make Michael Tanner want to climb up on stage

15 August 2015

9:00 AM

15 August 2015

9:00 AM

L’heure espagnole/L’enfant et les sortilèges

Glyndebourne, in rep until 30 August

When I saw the first performance of this production of Ravel’s two operas at Glyndebourne three years ago, I thought it was the nearest thing to operatic perfection I had witnessed. But this revival is even finer. Whereas I concluded last time that L’heure espagnole was fundamentally an old-time bore that goes on for far too long — only 50 minutes, but it seemed much longer — this time I found it absorbing from start to finish, though I still think it is no funnier than most of what used to be called dirty jokes.

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