Glyndebourne
Football vs opera, and the terror of being considered highbrow
Opera was hugely popular in Victorian Britain, but subsidies have doomed it to charges of ‘foreign elitism’ – as opposed to a ‘national passion, like football’
The cheering fantasies of Oliver Messel
Through the grey downbeat years of postwar austerity, we nursed cheering fantasies of a life more lavishly colourful and hedonistic.…
Sincere, serious and beautiful: Glyndebourne’s Parsifal reviewed
‘Here time becomes space,’ says Gurnemanz in Act One of Parsifal, and true enough, the end of the new Glyndebourne…
Ageing well
A classic opera production ages like wine. When David McVicar’s staging of Handel’s Giulio Cesare first opened at Glyndebourne in…
A sugar rush for the eyes: Glyndebourne’s The Merry Widow reviewed
In 1905, shortly before the world première of The Merry Widow, the Viennese theatre manager Wilhelm Karczag got cold feet…
‘I want every production I do to be the funniest’: an interview with Cal McCrystal
There are certain things that you don’t expect at the opera. Laughter, for example. Proper laughter, that is; not the…
Fire and fizz
Are you supposed to laugh at the end of Don Giovanni? Audiences often do, and they did at the end…
Sex-change soufflé
One morning in the 20th century, Thérèse wakes up next to her husband and announces that she’s a feminist. Hubby,…
Glyndebourne goes gender neutral
Angela Rayner caused a bit of a stir a few weeks ago when she rocked up at the Glyndebourne opera…
Sea fever
You’ve got to hand it to Dame Ethel Smyth. Working in an era when to be a British composer implied…
The human condition
Opera buffs enjoy their jargon. We all do it, scattering words like ‘spinto’ and ‘Fach’ like an enthusiastic pizza waiter…
The caged bird sings
At the first night of Glyndebourne Festival 2021 there was relief and joyful expectation as Gus Christie made his speech…
Panto at Glyndebourne
Offenbach at Glyndebourne! Short of Die Soldaten with a picnic break or a period-instrument revival of Jerry Springer: The Opera,…
Dear Mary: How do we explain being in Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book?
Q. We often have friends coming to stay before (and after) we all head off for Glyndebourne, a 20-minute drive…
An overcooked blowout: Glyndebourne’s Die Zauberflöte reviewed
Think back to when you were 12, and the sensation of re-opening your favourite book. (This is The Spectator; I’m…
If opera survives, it’ll be thanks to artists and curators, not opera houses
It was bucketing it down in Venice, yet the beach was heaving. Families, lovebirds, warring kids, a yappy mutt, all…
Magnificent: Vanessa at Glyndebourne reviewed
‘Outside this house the world has changed. Life is swifter than before; there is no time for idle gestures.’ Anatol,…
Vexing reading of a perplexing opera: Glyndebourne’s Pelléas et Mélisande reviewed
The femme fatale was invented in France. A giddy, greedy child in her first incarnation, as the antiheroine of Abbé…
Glyndebourne’s Der Rosenkavalier never forgets to be funny
‘Comedy for music by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Music by Richard Strauss.’ That’s what the creators of Der Rosenkavalier wrote on…
A champion actor and fully paid-up member of the human race: Roger Allam interviewed
A most excellent fellow, Roger Allam. On the stage he brings dignity to all he does, in the noblest traditions…
Much is routine – and a fair amount is worse: Glyndebourne’s Madama Butterfly reviewed
There is no such thing as a moderately good performance of Madama Butterfly, or, to be more precise, it’s not…
Debussy, Tippett and Wagner: the musical treats of 2018
Claude Debussy died on 25 March 1918 to the sound of explosions. Four days earlier, the Kaiser’s army had deployed…
Excellent but there’s too much larking about: ENO’s Rodelinda reviewed
ENO has revived Richard Jones’s production of Handel’s Rodelinda. It was warmly greeted on its first outing in 2014, though…
BBC Proms
BBC Proms 2016 is about as exciting as my sock drawer. But it’s unclear who exactly is to blame. The…
Long life
On Monday I went to the newsagent to buy the newspapers and picked up the first issue of a new…
