Glyndebourne: The Untold History Page #2
- Year:
- 2014
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Adolf said, "Well, you could speak
to my brother, Fritz."
Christie and Busch finally met
in the January of 1934 in Amsterdam
and it was a strange
meeting by all accounts.
Fritz expounded at great
length about his beliefs
in music, in singing, in what
he wanted to achieve,
in not wanting to use big names,
wanting to seek out new talents
and so on, and apparently John
sat there, seemed to be asleep.
So Fritz believed.
Then he got up and went, "Yes, that
was very interesting - thank you."
And left.
And Fritz was left apparently
thinking, "Well,
"I don't think anything is going
to come of that," and of course
a week or so later, got the letter
saying, "Right - let's start."
NEWSREEL:
Here, members of the castwere discussing the score
for the night's performance.
The music, too, was under
the direction of
one of the original team -
Dr Fritz Busch.
His influence was
so very civilised and humane.
As a German,
he had the discipline
and the absolute method.
When Busch arrived at Glyndebourne,
the tables were set out
and polished, his ruler and his
red pencils and even his red ink,
which, to my horror - he used to
write on musical scores in red ink
to show that it was for all time.
Fritz Busch suggested this whole
notion of having a producer,
which was completely alien
because there was no such role in
the British opera world at the time.
Fritz Busch had worked with
Carl Ebert in Berlin
and so he contacted Carl.
Carl Ebert was one of the leading
figures in 1920s German theatre.
He was not Jewish,
but since he was to the left,
he was regarded as
a persona non grata
and when the opera house he was in...
the director of was the opera house
that Goebbels took control
of as the Gauleiter of Berlin,
so he was basically removed.
Carl Ebert thought the idea was
completely mad, but came over
anyway to meet with John Christie
and had a look at the theatre,
discovered there was no fly tower,
so all the scenery changes
involved pulling everything out
onto the grass outside the theatre,
but realised that what they
were going to get out of this,
because they sat down the three
men and talked about the budget,
they talked about what
their principles were
and what they wanted to achieve
and they realised
they were going to get
the rehearsal period they needed,
the concentration, the devotion
to producing the best
possible opera
and they both signed up for it.
This man's idea was a real new one.
He said, "I would like to
give my country, in this specific
"kind of art, the kind of perfection
which is unknown up to these days."
And he said, "I want to give my
country something on my expenses."
That made me really quiet -
I shut my mouth and said, "Well,
"if somebody really wants to
sacrifice
"quite a fortune for this reason,
"then I have to contribute
with all my strength,"
and so did my friend Fritz Busch,
too.
And they revolutionised
opera in this country.
And introduced a lot more
drama into opera.
Before that, the singers hadn't
needed to act
and there was no demand for that.
Ebert and Busch brought dramatic
intensity into the operas.
The most important thing, of course,
is to improvise the words.
Really feel that it's the first time
she is dictating a letter,
she had only generally in mind
what she wanted to say,
so let's have it again - come on.
SHE SINGS:
All the visions are coming
from outside,
I'm nearly haunted by visions
to see how people move, what
kind of facial expression they have,
what kind of gestures they have.
I rush up and down,
I make the gestures,
I time carefully the steps,
how to go in, how to go out.
The position of the singers
must be to see the conductor.
Our singers have to be together,
they can see that they
belong to each other.
He was in himself a natural actor,
so he could show very clearly
to the artists what he wanted.
He always had great respect
for the musical requirements
and Busch made sure he did.
They'd speak in German together.
Carl was as good as gold.
Like all producers,
he'd try and get away with it,
but Busch was very firm about it.
Is it possible if I say
we can come in a little earlier to
establish the mood before
we actually start singing?
Excellent idea.
And suddenly going with your cue.
Before the war, this wasn't really
an operatic country.
When we had opera, it was brought in
to the Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden, very short seasons.
There was a wonderful small company,
the Carl Rosa,
which went around the "provinces",
but there wasn't an operatic
tradition.
It was Glyndebourne really
with the tutelage,
with the direction of Carl Ebert
and Fritz Busch.
Glyndebourne created truly
professional opera in this country.
This was Ebert's creation.
Carl Ebert and Fritz Busch basically
set the tone for everything that
Glyndebourne was to become, which
was not the best that we can do,
but the best that can be done
anywhere, and that was John
and Audrey's motto for Glyndebourne.
Out of the initial meeting
between Fritz Busch
and John Christie in Amsterdam,
they confirmed a two-week season to
start on 28 May 1934, with six
performances of Le Nozze di Figaro
and six performances
of Cosi Fan Tutte.
Rudolf Bing was contacted -
he had worked with both Busch
and Ebert previously.
He was asked to hunt out
the European continental singers
while Busch himself came
over to this country
and auditioned all of the British
singers, including Audrey Mildmay.
There was no assumption that
because she was the boss's wife,
she was automatically
going to get a role.
She had to go through the same
process as everyone else.
And that's how it all began,
in 1934, and she sang
the role of Susanna in The Marriage
of Figaro on May 28, 1934.
The first night was sold out, pretty
much, which, considering they were
charging 2 a seat, which was a lot
almost overnight they achieved
exactly what they had set out to do.
They had timed their performance
so that people had an hour
and a half interval in the middle,
they could have their dinner,
stroll in the gardens, look at
the views, soak up the atmosphere
and enjoy absolute
international class opera.
And the critics of the time,
they went away absolutely
bemused by what they had seen.
But they all, to a man, appreciated
that they had seen something
completely new and different
and special.
The second night...which was
the first night, of course,
only seven people came.
just over 300, it was very,
very empty and then the reviews
really hit the streets
and after that, it was sold out
every single night.
So after a repertoire that was
Mozart-based,
1938 saw the introduction
of Don Pasquale and Macbeth
and then in 1940, they planned a
repertoire that would have included
Carmen, but of course war broke out
and so everything was abandoned.
Glyndebourne itself was made
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