Opera’s sizzling new festival
Matthew Bell swaps the lawns of Sussex for a taste of Tuscany, and a fiesta attended by everyone who is anyone
The dog days of August used to be the deadest time of year, at least for glamorous social gatherings. But thanks to three bright young musicians, that has suddenly all changed. Now, on the last weekend of summer, il tutto mondo packs their bags for Florence for a four-day extravaganza of opera, dance music and high society partying.
The New Generation Festival launched last year with the aim of championing young performers. The idea was to create a Glyndebourne esque experience in Italy, the place where opera was actually born. Hard to believe nobody had thought of it before – outdoor opera in a beautiful Florentine garden, what’s not to like? It opened in the gardens of the Palazzo Corsini on Wednesday, with a dazzling new staging of Mozart’s Don
Giovanni. It continues tonight with Shakespeare’s Henry V, with music by William Walton, and concludes with a final Don Giovanni tomorrow.
But it’s not just about the opera. Every night when the curtain comes down, the audience finds themselves drifting into a beautifully lit limonaia – a barn for storing lemon trees in winter – where a jazz act flown in from New York is playing. This in turn gives way to a late-night set of dance music by Dutch DJ Harold van Lennep.
This heady cocktail of old and new, formality and fun is intoxicating, and attracts a colourful crowd. Princess Michael of Kent was in the front row with daughter Lady Gabriella Windsor last year, while actress Goldie Hawn could be seen wide-eyed on Wednesday watching opera’s bawdiest Lothario, Don Giovanni, being dragged screaming into hell. The backdrop to the stage is the crumbling façade of the Palazzo Corsini, home of Prince Filippo Corsini. His wife, the redoubtable Principessa Giorgiana, is a key fixture of the festival, often spied dancing on table tops until the small hours.
Lady Marina Windsor, 25, granddaughter of the Duke of Kent who is a cousin of the Queen, has spent the summer working backstage here. Another of the Queen’s relatives, Flora Ogilvy, 23, co-hosted a dinner party for 70 on Tuesday with Count Julian Solms, at his home in the Torrigiani gardens. Guest of honour was Alice Walton, the American arts patron and Wal-mart heiress. But it’s not invitation only (yet, though there’s talk of that in the future) and tickets cost only €35 if you are under 35 with full price tickets ranging from €95 to €2,500 (£85-£2,240).
The brains behind the festival are three young Englishmen. Roger Granville and Frankie Parham met at prep school and have gone into business as impresarios. They were introduced to Max Fane, a wildly talented conductor, and the idea was born.
“It’s mad to think there was no Glyndebourne in a country where it is actually hot,” says Granville. “Where it’s nice to sit on the grass because it’s not wet, and where the food is delicious.”
Forget the standard hampers you usually see at open-air music festivals too, there are no limp prawn sandwiches and tubs of coleslaw at picnics here. This is Tuscany, home to the Florentina steak and finest Chianti wines. Guests at the opening night guzzled ravioli and roast veal, knocked back with gallons of Corsini wine.
As an added twist, they were entertained by London cabaret act Bounder & Cad. Perhaps it was just as well not everyone could understand the lyrics of some of their racier songs, such as the very literal interpretation of Bach’s Air on
the G-string. A rendition of Verdi’s “La Donna è Mobile” translated into “A woman and her mobile”, and featured the following lyrics: “Tells me ti amo/ On Instagram-o/ Spelling is dodgy/mostly emoji.”
Even the Royal family came in for some ribaldry during a song dedicated to the Corsinis – “May we salute thee/ Principe Filippo/ You have more grace/ than the Prince Philip we know.”
A vital ingredient is the Corsini family, who ruled Florence since the 1100s; one ancestor, Pope Clement XII, commissioned Rome’s Trevi fountain. Principally, the family are now involved in wine and olive oil production, but they are wildly social and love music, each summer travelling across Italy by camper van, literally singing for their supper. During the festival, the younger children run around ringing bells to announce the show’s about to start.
Yet, for all the exuberance, there is one sad note – the absence of Prince Filippo Corsini. He was the 21-yearold son of Giorgiana’s son Duccio, and sole male heir. In October 2016, he was knocked off his bicycle in Knightsbridge by a lorry, the eighth cyclist to be killed in London that year. A late-night concert in the Church of Ognisanti is named in his honour.
Back in the Corsini gardens, the dress code is black tie or Renaissance masks, or “any fabulous outfit you care to choose”. One New York grandee told me he had forgotten his tuxedo, so had it Fed-exed over, only for it to be impounded in customs. When, finally, he put it on, he found it no longer fitted, having put on weight since its last outing. A tailor was quickly sent for, who turned out to be none other than the late Salvatore Ferragamo’s personal tailor, aged 80. He adjusted the girth minutes before curtain-up. The show must go on!