The Rake's Progress at Glyndebourne Festival 2023

 expected The Rake's Progress by Stravinsky and WH Auden to be in high demand with my opera-going friends but other shows in the Glyndebourne Festival 2023 took their fancy and so we were left to go on our own. Not that we were complaining.

This was our last visit to this year's festival and our first on the blue side, where my seat Blue Upper Circle A7 was a very respectable £128.

As on the previous trip with just two of us we travelled light the main difference being that we took a bottle of bubbly instead of buying it there; we can buy a decent bottle of champagne locally for about the price of two classes there.

As it was a Friday, and not a weekend, we figured that the trains down to the south coast would not be packed and so it would be safe to join the Lewes train at Clapham Junction. We made the right decision and the journey was a real pleasure. Travelling that way makes a proper day out of it rather than an opera sandwiched between two bouts of driving.

On arrival it was business as usual, a short walk around Lewes before heading to The Depot for lunch and then the pre-booked coach to Glyndebourne. 

We had booked the earlier of the two coaches aiming to get there as the gardens opened and that plan worked too. It was already quite busy when we arrived, just on the official opening time, and I walked briskly to the Veg Patch Stretch Tent where I was able to grab one of the few unreserved tables.

The before opera time was the traditional mix of tea, cake and walk.

One of the attractions of this production of The Rake's Progress is the set designs by David Hockney, and I liked the mix of real and drawn objects. Of course the music is the priority but while sets (in my opinion) can never make an opera than can help to ruin one. These sets were like a little sweet offered by a restaurant after a good meal, unexpected, pleasing but a small part of the event.

There was a down-side though and one I do not quite understand. The many scenes had many set changes and these took an unexpectedly long time given each set's simplicity. We sat for several minutes in the semi-dark several times. Not quite enough to spoil the opera but annoying nevertheless. 

The music was gorgeous as we follow the rake's quick rise and slow decent, which included marrying a woman with a beard, hence the graphic at the top. The mood was light and comical throughout and that was definitely helped by the silliness of some of the sets.

I think I had seen this production of The Rake's Progress twice before (my Google Calendar only goes back a decade or so) and it was well worth seeing again. Indeed, I'll gladly go once more if the revival gets re-revived.