OPERA IN THE COUNTRY
The English Country House Opera Season is a hugely successful British phenomenon, now being copied across Europe
A British phenomenon - we take a look at the English Country House Opera
THE IDEA IS SIMPLE: as summer stretches across the English countryside, take the world's great operas out of air-conditioned opera houses and stage them in rural estates, either in the grounds or the house itself. Audiences will follow. The atmosphere is festive. People arrive with picnic hampers – the long dinner interval is an essential element of country house opera – and they tend to dress up.
It all began at Glyndebourne before World War
II, when John Christie opened up his Sussex mansion to fellow opera-lovers. The wealthy landowner never intended to establish an art form but that is what Country House Opera has become. As these festivals proliferate across England, there seems to be no diminishment of appetite for them. The season grows longer and festivals are getting more distinct identities. Each has its speciality.
As well as hearing great operas well sung, the Country House phenomenon offers the chance to stay overnight in some lovely hotels or pubs nearby and make a whole weekend of your night at the opera.
GLYNDEBOURNE FESTIVAL OPERA
21 MAY – 30 AUGUST
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In the opera world, 4G is nothing to do with mobile phone reception. It's all about the four big opera festivals that dominate the English countryside in the summertime: Garsington, Grange Park, the Grange Festival - and then
Glyndebourne.
Glyndebourne began it all. Based in a beautiful fauxJacobean house in Sussex, Glyndebourne's owner John Christie inadvertently invented country house opera in 1934 when he staged a small festival at his home for the benefit of his wife , the soprano Audrey Mildmay. She told her husband that if he was going to stage an opera, he may as well build
her an opera house – so he did.
All the traditions of country house opera began at Glyndebourne, including the long interval, the champagne and picnic baskets, and the distinctively British combination
of dinner jackets with panama hats.
The festival is now run by Gus Christie, grandson of John, whose family still live in the manor house. In 1994 Glyndebourne replaced its old performing space with a new state of the art opera house, acoustically one of the best in Britain and the administration of the three-month summer season – the longest of all the festivals - is now a year-round,
highly professional business.
This year Glydebourne offers six operas – new productions of Dialogues des Carmélites, Alcina and Fidelio,
plus revivals of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, L'elisir d'amore and The Rake's Progress which was designed by David Hockney. glyndebourne.com
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Where to stay
Ockenden Manor
Ockenden Manor is 15 miles north of Glyndebourne