Glyndebourne: The Untold History Page #3

---

over as an evacuee home for

one-to-five-year-olds

from the East End of London.

Immediately after the war,

there were lots of plans,

John trying to find a way of getting

things started again, but obviously

not having the money because the

whole economic climate had changed.

Having started with Mozart

at Glyndebourne, it was inevitable

that they weren't just going to stick

with that one composer.

As different music directors

and different artistic directors

came through the organisation,

they all brought their own passions.

In 1959, Carl Ebert said

he wanted to do a production

of Der Rosenkavalier as his farewell

gesture to Glyndebourne for the

25th anniversary and he would then

retire at the end of that season.

The atmosphere was very excited here

because they were doing their first

Der Rosenkavalier with

Regine Crespin as the Marschallin

and a Swedish soprano I adored,

Elizabeth Soderstrom,

was singing Octavian.

It was a wonderful production.

A young man called John Cox was

Professor Ebert's assistant - he's

now head of everything in the opera

world, he's a very grand figure.

That was my first season here.

I always think of it as

the Silver Opera

because I think of

the silver anniversary

of Glyndebourne on that year.

I filmed them going round the set,

planning, talking to the

designers, talking to costume makers

and so on and so forth.

The atmosphere was just as it is now,

very excited!

Opera is a wonderful art

when it's all put together,

all the different parts of

the total staging, the costumes,

the design of the singing,

the orchestra.

It was his last season

as artistic director.

I was in complete awe of him,

he had such an incredible reputation

and there was some absurd moment

when Carl Ebert turned to me

and put a tricorn on my head.

I don't know whether he knew

who I was at the time,

because I was a very mere assistant!

It was received remarkably well

by the bulk of the critics,

but the Times critic wrote a rather

caustic review which

so incensed John Christie

that he wrote to every single

member of the audience and asked

them to write to the Times.

Which they did!

All saying that the times was

completely wrong and it was

beautiful and perfect and of course

he was right to stand up to them!

In 1958, John Christie passed

on the reins of the chairmanship

to his son George.

He'd been brought up with

this opera house,

so it was almost in his blood.

My dad took over at

the tender age of 23

and my grandfather died

when he was 28.

MUSIC:
L'incoronazione Di Poppea:

Pur Ti Miro, Pur Ti Stringo

My dad, he had a tough time

in the first decade or so.

The '60s were tough economically

and he had to grow Glyndebourne

from its rather homespun beginnings.

The next item I'd like to discuss

is the bookings for The Wild Things

at the National Theatre.

George was a businessman

and he worked for the banking

foundation and was more "in the

world", as it were, than his father.

But when George came, other

things were happening in any case.

I mean, the world was changing -

he was part of a changing world.

He was a real realist as far

as Glyndebourne's finances were

concerned. It was the beginning

of sponsorship in this country.

Initially, cigarette companies were

helping Glyndebourne exist, um...

And he had a lot of charm

and infectious enthusiasm

and was a very adept at raising

funds from the corporate world.

And then as he settled

into the role, as it were,

he started to flex his muscles

a little bit more - there were

alterations to the repertoire and

the way the seasons were structured.

We're going to move onto the next

item on the agenda - the 1983 tour.

His greatest achievement in his eyes

was the establishment

of the Glyndebourne Touring Opera

because he was really aware

that we needed to get these

productions out to a wider audience.

And if the thing doesn't work,

then my own particular livelihood

is at stake in quite some degree.

So, I'm very passionate

about the thing!

It may wear me down, but it's worth

being worn down by passion.

It was actually originally planned

in 1977 that in the 1980

season there would be

a Rosenkavalier.

I was luckily placed to be

the person

they wanted to direct it, but

I didn't want to go mad, you know.

You know, making it totally

Vienna 1900, Freud, Jung

and all that, you know, everybody

is a neurotic or a political

extremist - I didn't want

to do it like that.

Well, Felicity, of course,

everybody thinks of Felicity now

as a Marschallin - I never

thought of her as a Marschallin.

There she was, six feet tall,

slim as a rake...

I loved the character of Octavian.

I'd never played a boy on stage,

so that was quite a challenge,

because I tend to drift around

and obviously Octavian is much

more passionate

and like a young puppy, really.

I always see it in terms of shapes

because the phrases are

so beautiful and so...

I don't know, so bendy!

Not a very musical word, but it's...

sensuous and...

lilting and...

I don't know - it gives one

a lot of opportunities.

MUSIC AND BIRDSONG

The '80s was a golden decade

for Glyndebourne with Peter Hall

as the artistic director and Bernard

Haitink as the music director.

At that stage, Glyndebourne was

an 830-seat opera house -

it had grown over the years

to that size.

But it was too small for

the ever-increasing demand

from the audiences.

It was a cramped, hot,

not-great-acoustically auditorium,

creaking at the seams.

Slowly, within the ages, it dawned

on him that he was going to

have to knock down the dear old

theatre and build a bigger one.

By having a bigger auditorium,

and more seats to sell,

the box office potential is enhanced

and box office potential is

what's going to secure

Glyndebourne's long-term existence.

And so in the late '80s,

he set about fundraising.

The project was 34 million. Not an

insubstantial amount at that time.

But it also...

He got his timing pretty perfect.

It was the height of the boom

in the late '80s

and he took every single

corporate member around a model

in the house here and enthused them

with his vision for the new theatre.

And he managed to raise 75% of the

funds from our corporate members

in return for a 20-year membership.

And we had a closing gala to close

the curtain on the old theatre

and we managed to raise

about 1 million that night.

The bulldozers came in

in August 1992

and knocked down the old theatre.

We still had about 6 million to

raise. It was a nervous moment.

We raised the money

in a boom economy,

but we were very fortunate then

in building the theatre in a slump.

It's reckoned, generally speaking,

that we built a 50 million pounder

for 34 million.

He knew there was going to be

uproar amongst all the old,

traditional audience members,

and there was.

He received

a lot of letters about it

when he finally did take the plunge

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes