Glyndebourne

An ensemble achievement that dances and sparkles: Glyndebourne’s Giulio Cesare reviewed

6 July 2024 9:00 am

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

22 June 2024 9:00 am

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

15 June 2024 9:00 am

There are certain things that you don’t expect at the opera. Laughter, for example. Proper laughter, that is; not the…

The final scenes are a knockout: Glyndebourne’s Don Giovanni reviewed

10 June 2023 9:00 am

Are you supposed to laugh at the end of Don Giovanni? Audiences often do, and they did at the end…

A classic in the making: Glyndebourne's Poulenc double bill reviewed

13 August 2022 9:00 am

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

16 July 2022 7:21 pm

Angela Rayner caused a bit of a stir a few weeks ago when she rocked up at the Glyndebourne opera…

Serves Ethel Smyth's opera magnificently: Glyndebourne's The Wreckers reviewed

4 June 2022 9:00 am

You’ve got to hand it to Dame Ethel Smyth. Working in an era when to be a British composer implied…

The central performances are tremendous: Glyndebourne's Luisa Miller, reviewed

28 August 2021 9:00 am

Opera buffs enjoy their jargon. We all do it, scattering words like ‘spinto’ and ‘Fach’ like an enthusiastic pizza waiter…

World-class music, heavily symbolic staging: Glyndebourne's Katya Kabanova reviewed

5 June 2021 9:00 am

At the first night of Glyndebourne Festival 2021 there was relief and joyful expectation as Gus Christie made his speech…

A silly, bouncy delight: Glyndebourne's In the Market for Love reviewed

17 October 2020 9:00 am

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?

14 September 2019 9:00 am

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

27 July 2019 9:00 am

Think back to when you were 12, and the sensation of re-opening your favourite book. (This is The Spectator; I’m…

Sun & Sea (Marina), the Golden Lion-winning opera at the Venice Biennale. Photo: © Andrej Vasilenko

If opera survives, it’ll be thanks to artists and curators, not opera houses

25 May 2019 9:00 am

It was bucketing it down in Venice, yet the beach was heaving. Families, lovebirds, warring kids, a yappy mutt, all…

Psycho thriller: Samuel Barber’s Vanessa at Glyndebourne Festival

Magnificent: Vanessa at Glyndebourne reviewed

11 August 2018 9:00 am

‘Outside this house the world has changed. Life is swifter than before; there is no time for idle gestures.’ Anatol,…

Christina Gansch as Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande at Glyndebourne Festival

Vexing reading of a perplexing opera: Glyndebourne’s Pelléas et Mélisande reviewed

7 July 2018 9:00 am

The femme fatale was invented in France. A giddy, greedy child in her first incarnation, as the antiheroine of Abbé…

Rachel Willis-Sorensen as the Marschallin and Kate Lindsey as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne Festival

Glyndebourne’s Der Rosenkavalier never forgets to be funny

2 June 2018 9:00 am

‘Comedy for music by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Music by Richard Strauss.’ That’s what the creators of Der Rosenkavalier wrote on…

Roger Allam as John Christie in David Hare’s The Moderate Soprano

A champion actor and fully paid-up member of the human race: Roger Allam interviewed

26 May 2018 9:00 am

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

26 May 2018 9:00 am

There is no such thing as a moderately good performance of Madama Butterfly, or, to be more precise, it’s not…

Claude Debussy and his daughter Chouchou near Arcachon, France, 1915

Debussy, Tippett and Wagner: the musical treats of 2018

6 January 2018 9:00 am

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

4 November 2017 9:00 am

ENO has revived Richard Jones’s production of Handel’s Rodelinda. It was warmly greeted on its first outing in 2014, though…

The Heckler: those behind the Proms this year have the imagination of a dead fish

30 April 2016 9:00 am

BBC Proms 2016 is about as exciting as my sock drawer. But it’s unclear who exactly is to blame. The…

Reading the Mirror’s new newspaper makes me want to throw myself on a bonfire

5 March 2016 9:00 am

On Monday I went to the newsagent to buy the newspapers and picked up the first issue of a new…

Anna Devin as Alcina and Nick Pritchard as Ruggiero in ‘La Liberazione di Ruggiero’ at Brighton Early Music Festival

Has there ever been a better time to be a lover of Baroque opera?

28 November 2015 9:00 am

Time was when early music was a 6 p.m. concert, Baroque began with Bach and ended with Corelli’s Christmas Concerto,…

How the Germans made Glyndebourne

21 November 2015 9:00 am

This is hardly the time of year for picnics on the lawn, but I have nevertheless had a week dominated…

Going ape: Bertie Carvel as Yank

Glyndebourne caters to the lower-middle classes not past-it toffs

7 November 2015 9:00 am

What is Glyndebourne? A middle-aged Bullingdon. That’s a common view: a luxury bun fight for past-it toffs who glug champagne,…