Glyndebourne
Has there ever been a better time to be a lover of Baroque opera?
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
This is hardly the time of year for picnics on the lawn, but I have nevertheless had a week dominated…
Glyndebourne caters to the lower-middle classes not past-it toffs
What is Glyndebourne? A middle-aged Bullingdon. That’s a common view: a luxury bun fight for past-it toffs who glug champagne,…
Watching the clocks
When I saw the first performance of this production of Ravel’s two operas at Glyndebourne three years ago, I thought…
Welcome to Bedlam
Caius Gabriel Cibber’s statues of ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Raving Madness’, their eyes staring blindly into the void, petrified in torment, once…
Shaw hand
When is a rape not a rape? It’s an unsettling question — far more so than anything offered up by…
Long life
It’s June, and the country-house summer opera festivals are now in full swing. Glyndebourne, which opened the season last month,…
Evolutionary road
As Sepp Blatter has so affectingly remarked, the organisation he formerly headed needs evolution, not revolution. There is a consensus…
Carmen v. Carmen
It’s been a busy operatic week, with a nearly great concert performance of Parsifal in Birmingham on Sunday (reviewed by…
Long life
Winslow Hall is a large and handsome country house in Buckinghamshire, built in 1700 by Sir Christopher Wren, which Tony…
High hopes
One of the highlights of last year’s Glyndebourne Festival was the revival of Richard Jones’s Falstaff, spruced up and invigorated…
Close encounters
London is lucky to have heard Joyce DiDonato at the height of her powers in two consecutive seasons. The American…
Long life
London’s opera critics have been roundly condemned for suggesting that a female singer’s personal appearance could make her unsuitable for…
Loss of heart
In all its minute details, Der Rosenkavalier is rooted in a painstakingly stylised version of Rococo Vienna that, paradoxically, is…
Long life
One curious fact about Sir George Christie, who died last week, aged 79, was that he always cut his own…
Musical youth
Michael Henderson talks to Glyndebourne’s fresh-faced new music director, Robin Ticciati
The genius of Gluck
This is the first of my more-or-less monthly columns, the idea of which is to report on operatic events other…
Intimate and intense
What could be more delightful than going to Gyndebourne with someone who has never been before, arriving in time for…
Bottled opera
Glyndebourne. There is no single quintessential example of English scenery, but this is one of the finest. The landscape is …
