The Greatest Love of All A glorious summer’s day at Glyndebourne and four hours of Wagner, what could be more perfect! Director Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s 2003 production of ‘Tristan und Isolde’ is an old Glyndebourne favourite having been revived in 2007, 2008, and 2009. There was a much-reduced Covid-era semi-staged production in 2021 which didn’t light […]

Andalusian Heat and Passion in the Sussex Downs Last night Fiona and I were in East Sussex for the opening night of the Glyndebourne Festival 2024. It’s the 90th year for Glyndebourne and with the organisation having to refocus after the savage and short-sighted cancellation of its Arts Council grant which has put an end […]

Killing Commendatore A balaclava-clad rapist bursts from the hotel room of his planned victim, propelled out by her screams. Her father charges in to save his daughter but is struck down by the rapist who speeds off into the night. Is this a new Netflix drama? No, It’s Don Giovanni, back at Glyndebourne for the […]

The Rake clears up Glyndebourne’s 48-year-old production of The Rake’s Progress has returned with style. This is no cobwebbed old war horse to dust off and re-use but an astonishing synthesis which still feels modern. The story of The Rake’s Progress is, at surface level, inspired by a blend of Hogarth’s series of paintings of […]

Love is the Drug Last night I was at the Royal Opera House for the visceral new production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. Today I’m in the sunshine at Glyndebourne for Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, a frothy bel canto confection of romance, charm and glorious melodies. The contrast couldn’t be starker, and that diversity of experience […]