Glyndebourne: The Untold History Page #8

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of her own circumstance

and I really wanted to try and bring

more positivity to her, really.

I think there can be an expectation

that the Marschallin should be

played, by the actress, as someone

who goes on to a sort of

default setting of...

depression and dignity.

And I've...

..tried to work against that

slightly.

'It was an interesting process

trying to find what drives her.'

'She's very well aware

of her position in society.

'She knows that she cannot step

outside of the boundaries,'

so she's coming to terms

with that in the piece,

coming to terms with her role

and how she can fulfil that

but still be happy,

still be a happy human being.

And she is not an old woman. She's

still beautiful, she's still young.

But she is feeling

the ageing process

and the specific situation

with Octavian being a younger lover,

and later, Sophie the girl

he falls in love with,

leads her to reflect on the larger

issues of time and impermanence.

Marschallin is Hofmannsthal's

mouthpiece for this sense of -

das Gleitende, he called it -

where everything is in flux.

The Marschallin is

a middle-aged woman

having an affair

with a young man of 17.

'And effectively trying

to stop the clocks by doing it.'

'The libretto is shot through

with endless references

'to the present,

the past, the future.'

When she talks to Octavian,

she says,

"It's going to be heute oder

morgen - today or tomorrow."

Time is such an important

part of...

Well, the Marschallin

talks about it and talks about

sometimes she gets up

and stops all the clocks.

She can't believe how time...

You're in it and then all of a sudden

it just slips away

through your fingers and...

Like sand running through

a timer, you know?

The text is so, so wonderful,

the Hofmannsthal text.

Absolutely extraordinary.

And I think...

Strauss' music is glorious

but the text is so...relevant

to everybody, really.

I think everyone can identify

with the Marschallin, who says,

"How can it be that...

"that I was the young girl

and I shall be the old woman,

"and I'm still the same?"

Oh.

Gets me every time when I say that

because it's obvious,

absolutely obvious, but so true.

And you don't...

You don't realise it.

I think when you're young

you think you're going to grow up

or you're going to grow old,

but inside you're just the same,

it's just everybody else...

SHE LAUGHS:

REPORTER:
After rehearsal,

the cast could relax in the lovely

grounds, which are as much a part

of a Glyndebourne festival

as the performances themselves.

We live in

an artistic commune here, really.

I mean, the house

is filled with people

who are involved with the operas.

That's not something you see

in every opera house.

I think that really promotes

a very high level of creativity.

Cos when you're happy you can create.

When I first came here, people

asked me, "Where are you working?"

And I'd say, and they'd say "Where's

that? What does it do? Really?"

"Sussex? An opera company?

No, you're kidding."

When I think of what I learned

down here - learned to drive,

I learned to swim.

All kinds of things.

You were here and that was it.

Great parties, amazing parties.

Especially with the chorus.

But... It was a life.

It was a way of life.

I enjoyed very much this opera house.

What is very beautiful after

the rehearsing - the rehearsal -

you can go out and see the sheep...

..beautiful nature...

It's just wonderful.

It's like a little piece of heaven.

Got these wonderful gardens

to walk in, there's fresh air,

you've time to let your head relax.

You have countryside

and you have the sheep.

I remember when I first came

to Glyndebourne,

the first thing I remember

were the sheep in the fields.

It's a bit like planet opera

and that can become quite oppressive.

It's a little opera bubble,

you know? And it's wonderful.

You know, if you were in London

it's a little different.

You might be working in the morning

and a bit in the afternoon

and then you're somewhere else,

in a different world, in a sense.

Well, when you're living at

Glyndebourne, this doesn't happen.

I mean, I live in South London

and you can sort of long for

the trains to draw in

at the junction on Vauxhall

just so that you can

smell the streets.

It's very peaceful but then when you

go inside to Glyndebourne, you're

working with the music and I just

think it's really nice to have both.

You can want to run away, yeah.

REPORTER:
By the croquet lawn,

Mr Harvey, the head gardener, trims

the flowers in the white border he's

designed for this year's display.

'People always think this idea

of presenting a silver rose

'to the daughter's nobility

'is a long-established

Viennese tradition.'

Hofmannsthal made it up.

He based it on the papal tradition

of the church, the Pope,

presenting a golden rose to

the daughters of the nobility.

And, of course, when Octavian

arrives, Strauss gives him

a great operatic set piece,

which we sit back and think,

"This is wonderful."

But, of course, as Adorno,

the great Marxist critic said,

"What is the offer?

It's merely a fake rose."

It's not a real one at all,

it's a silver rose, it's a fake.

And, of course, it is

an incredibly poetic idea.

I mean, people are manufacturing

silver roses for people

who love Rosenkavalier, you know,

because it's such a beautiful thing.

'One of the things I love most is

the presentation of the rose because'

Richard has done this extraordinary

thing of slightly refocusing

that particular scene,

so the moment and the beginning

when Sophie and Octavian

usually fall in love with each other,

when they're stammering

and stuttering their lines out,

actually becomes a little piece of

artifice of the sort of ceremony

they're going through,

where they actually had to be

prompted to say those lines.

But then when they

really do fall in love,

the choreography of this moment where

the two of them are just rocking

gently from side to side, I think,

is just so beautiful and so touching.

'The presentation of the rose

is Octavian's key,

'which is F-sharp major.'

And G-major, which is Sophie's key

Coming together...

F-major. And so forth.

Sophie and he are perfectly aware

that it's an artificial rose -

it's been made,

as the music is being made.

The point is that there has to be,

though, an emotional unity

between all the characters.

And Hofmannsthal, when he

wrote this marvellous,

short summary of Rosenkavalier,

he comes up with a phrase at the

end - "Eintracht der Lebendigen,"

the unity of everybody living.

Octavian is the glue between Ochs

and the Countess, for example,

and he comes together with Sophie,

and all of the characters

on the stage,

right down to the serving maids

and so forth -

they are together

in this wonderful unity.

'Everybody...

'depends on each other

to have any kind of future.'

In any kind of good existence,

we all must depend on each other.

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