Le nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne Festival 2025

My final visit to Glyndebourne Festival 2025 was to see Le nozze di Figaro. I had seen it at Glyndebourne four times since 2016 and so it was not an automatic choice to see it again but it is a lovely opera and this was a new production so that was enough to tempt me.

I went for the usual price band and got seat Blue Upper Circle A8 for £145. Happy with that.

Again travel did not quite work to Plan A but Plan B was fine, too late in Lewes to visit The Depository for lunch so I tried the coffee shop by the station entrance and that did the job. Several other Glyndebourne goers had the same idea.

The rest of the new routine worked and the first coach was early enough to claim a seat in the Veg Patch Stretch Tent. The weather was good so many people had opted for the grass leaving space in the marquees.

Any doubts about seeing Le nozze di Figaro were lifted as soon as the overture started, the music really is lovely.

The set made an immediate good impression too. Superficially simple with little decoration it rotated along several arcs creating multiple spaces with nonchalance.

The production made great use of the set and its movement creating busy but not fussy scenes.

The actors built on this by playing the comedy to the full with exaggerated, but not false, gestures and movements.

The combination of the set and performers and, yes, the sur titles, made this complex story easy to follow.

If this was a play then it would have been excellent but, of course it is an opera so there is the singing to consider too and this was excellent too. This was the most that I have ever enjoyed  Le nozze di Figaro and in the likely event that Glyndebourne revives it in a few years then I will eagerly see it again.

Falstaff at Glyndebourne Festival 2025

Falstaff is a jolly easy to approach opera so it was no surprise that friends wanted to see it with us.

Booking went well, as it had all season and we got seats Red Upper Circle B42-45 for £130 each.

Travel went almost to plan but we were too late into Lewes to visit The Depository for lunch so we settled for the cafe in the station instead and that actually worked well. It also meant that we were in prime position to get a good seat in the first coach.

And being in the first coach meant that we were able to secure a table in the Veg Patch Stretch Tent which is our current first-choice location.

Somehow we spent the almost two hours before the opera chatting over cake and bubbles and failed to go for the traditional walk around the lake. Not that it mattered, going to Glyndebourne with friends is as much about the friends than it is about the gardens.

Falstaff the opera is based on Shakespeare's  comic play The Merry Wives of Windsor which, in turn, reuses his character Sir John Falstaff from Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2.

Falstaff has propositioned more than one lady and when they find out they scheme together to get their playful revenge.

This leads to a Brian Rix style farce where people hide from their pursuers behind screens and in laundry baskets. Falstaff gets a comeuppance of sorts and we all head outside for the long dining interval.

In the final act Falstaff needs a further lesson and this time it all has a Midsummer's Night Dream feel to it with the village children dressed as fairies. When the second bout of playful revenge is over Falstaff good humouredly takes the lesson and all ends well.

The music and singing matched the fun and tempo of the plot and the evening was terrifically entertaining.

Saul at Glyndebourne Festival 2025

One of the couples who we take to Glyndebourne usually choose a Handel so it was no surprise when they asked to see Saul and it was no surprise either that I agreed. 

The ballot gods were kind to use and we got seats Blue Upper Circle C:5-8 for £130 each. A good price I thought.

On the day the weather was not great so many people who would have picnicked on the grass had booked tables in the Veg Patch Stretch Tent instead and that forced us back into the main marquee, not our first choice but a perfectly reasonable second choice.

Saul has a long overture of familiar Handel style which was a welcome reassurance of what was to come, though it only told only part of the story.

Then the curtain was raised and it immediately clear that we were in for something quite different. Possibly inspired by Bridgeton, the cast wore Georgian costumes and made exaggerated gestures with their arms. And that set the scene for a visually spectacular feast with plenty of modern dancing and a few severed heads.

Stunning as the staging was the music lived up to it. With lots to like the element that I enjoyed the most was when the chorus sang. And things got even better when the two came together such as they did the times the chorus piled along the very front of the stage in three tight rows to sing directly at us.

I am not sure if I ever learned the story of Saul at school (and am glad I forgot it if I did) so but I did know about David (the first severed head was the giant's) so guessed that he would be the ultimate victor in the contest with Saul which was entirely of Saul's making.

Saul was the complete package with good music, good singing and exceptional staging.

Parsifal at Glyndebourne Festival 2025

I am a late convertor to Wagner, and not a fully committed one at that, and it was more a sense of exploration that drew me to Parsifal at Glyndebourne, having seen it just once before in 2016.

I was keen enough to fork out £185 for Blue Upper Circle B6. I had gone for cheap seats (£95) last year and while that sort of worked I fancied something better this year.

We were a small familial party (parents and elder son) which made the logistics of the day simpler, e.g. we could all travel down by train and we did not need to try to impress guests with fancy food. A picnic of sorts in the Veg Patch Stretch Tent worked well, though the recently acquired bottle of champagne had not yet settled and opened with gusto.

Parsifal is a long opera and were were seated ready for the performance at 3pm with it due to finish at 9pm (with intervals).

It was stunning. There were several main characters and they all sang beautifully, and acted well to. The music was sumptuous and was played superbly, it was music to wallow in. The staging was interesting and active with things happening away from the main action. The only problem was the story that made almost no sense, despite the copious sur-titles.

Luckily the lack of story had no impact on my enjoyment, much is it does not with other foreign language music that I like (and also Yes songs that, despite being in English, often make no sense either). The music and singing carried the day gorgeously.

Il barbiere di Siviglia at Glyndebourne Festival 2025

Organising trips to Glyndebourne with different groups of friends takes some doing and then the food, drink and equipment for each trip has to be planned so it was good that on our first trip to Festival 2025 our guests offered to do all the food leaving us just to find a couple of bottles. They also offered to drive us there so that was sorted to. An easy start to the season.

I always have a sense of anticipation on the first visit of the year as there is always something that has changed. This year the main change was the enlarged and improved Veg Patch Stretch Tent which already was our first choice picnic area.

There were also some minor changes in the garden, including a work of art in the sunken garden where, years ago, the Henry Moore lay.

The big sculptures in the garden were there from the year before which was fine because I love them.

There had been some changes to how the seats were classified in the booking process but we were in our usual area where seat Blue Upper Circle B5 was a modest £110 (I am paying more to see Neil Young play in a field).

I seen the opera twice before, in 2016 and 2019, but had few memories of it and was ready to appreciate it afresh. The plot was simple and quickly understood, Dr Bartolo want to marry Rosina but she wants to marry Count Almaviva and is helped by Figaro (the titular barber). Their plans are playful and the story gentle fun.

The opera may be named after Figaro, and he takes the final curtain call, but it is the heroine Rosina, played by Cecilia Molinari, who carries the day with delightful singing and impish acting. She was a joy to watch and hear.

Tristan und Isolde at Glyndebourne Festival 2024

My second visit to Glyndebourne Festival 2024 was to see Tristan und Isolde.

For some reason Wagner is not that popular among my friends so only Julia and I went. Going on our own and knowing that there is little physical action we were prepared to risk the cheap seats and sent for Blue Upper Circle Sides 12/13 for £95.

The opera is long which meant an early start time, 3pm, and a change in my routine. There was no trip to The Depot in Lewes beforehand for lunch, instead it was a ice cream in Southover Grange Gardens and then a snack lunch (courtesy of M&S) at Glyndebourne. 

We travelled light and bought our drinks there, a mandatory Pimm's to have while walking through the gardens before the opera and a glass of fizz to have with dinner in the long interval.

I am not sure that the risk on the cheap tickets paid off as I could only see about a third of the stage and, for some reason, the production mostly placed the singers back from the front of the stage where I could not see them. 

Luckily I went for the music and the singing, and both were excellent.

The Merry Widow at Glyndebourne Festival 2024

My second visit to Glyndebourne Festival 2024 was to see The Merry Widow. I had never seen the opera before and that was enough for me to want to see it this time and I booked seats Red Upper Circle    C : 42/44 for £150 each. This was somewhat more that my first visit and that was because weekends are usually more expensive at Glyndebourne. The view was good and the seats were still good value. I always book this part of the house for a reason.

If I had done any research I would have known that the opera was in English and I might also have known that a lot of it was spoken rather than sung. These changes from the usual Glyndebourne fare made it a different experience but one I got used to.

This production had the style of a west end musical with lots of crowd pleasing antics and jokes, everyone laughed when the large tray of Ferrero Rocher appeared.

There was quite a bit of slap-stick too, the highpoint being an extravagant sex scene in a summer house where the bodies were literally flying (and other things!).

The staging was grand and the costumes grander, all of which added to sumptuousness of the performance.

The plot did little but was more than enough to hang the humour and the music on. The nature of The Merry Widow is that the humour was more prominent than the music but there were plenty of good tunes along the way and, as always, the singing was excellent, particularly from the Merry Widow herself.

This was an unusual Glyndebourne experience for me , and not one that I will probably rush to repeat, but it was a lot of fun, the quality of the production was very high and I am glad that I went.

Die Zauberflöte at Glyndebourne Festival 2024

My first visit to Glyndebourne Festival 2024 was to see Die Zauberflöte. I had seen the opera a few times and was not desperate to see it again but friends of mine were so I did the booking and we got seats Blue Upper Circle B 7-10 for £105. The view was good and the seats were great value.

 

Going to Glyndebourne is now a routine of trains, coaches and a holding lunch at The Depot next to Lewes Station, and that all worked well.

There was some confusion on the coach as my son, Howard, had also booked a seat and not only did I not know that he was going, I did not know that he was in the country!

Our friends arrived at Glyndebourne in time for the official 3pm opening and were able to claim a seat in the Veg Patch stretch tent, our new favourite location.

My problems with Die Zauberflöte is the obscure plot and this production solved that with excellent staging that not only told the story well but also stressed the comedy making it easy to follow and very enjoyable.

The orchestra and the singers were as good as they always are at Glyndebourne with the singers often going above and beyond with their acting.

I am still not convinced that I want to see other productions of Die Zauberflöte though I will make an exception if this one comes back to Glyndebourne in the near future.

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.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Glyndebourne Festival 2023

I was a little surprised arriving at Glyndebourne to discover that I was there to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Benjamin Britten because I had spent all the previous months in the booking processes on the false assumption that we were going to see The Fairy Queen by Purcell. This is also based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and we saw it at Glyndebourne in 2012.

We had also seen Britten's version before, in 2016, and I was very happy to go to either. No harm done, just some slight embarrassment.

Oddly none of our regular guests put this opera top of their list so just the two of us went, which made planning the arrangement so much easier. We travelled light with just a few sandwiches and some cakes planning to buy all our drinks there.

As is our practice when travelling by train, we arrived in Lewes in plenty of time to have a light lunch at The Depot next to the station and to have bit of a stroll around old Lewes before taking the pre-booked coach to Lewes.

There was bit of a rush to the Veg Patch Stretch Tent, our new favourite dining place there, and we were lucky to bag what looked to be the last unreserved table. Apparently, it has quickly become other people's favourite dining place.

The pre-opera period was easily filled with a round of cakes, hot drinks and a leisurely walk around the gardens.

At 4pm we made out way to our seats in Red Upper Circle Row D which cost us £146 each. Given the price of concert tickets these days that seems very reasonable.

The opera jumps in to the familiar story after the slow scene setting with the two couples already running through the woods and Oberon was already scheming against Tytania. 

Everything after that was magic.

Glyndebourne has exceptionally high standards and by those standards I felt that it had fallen a little short this year but this was top-notch stuff and more than made up for any previous slight disappointments.

The music was subtle, the singing lovely and the staging simple but stunning. Of course the story is very silly, and Oberon has no right to get away with how he behaved, but that was known beforehand and Shakespeare already forgiven.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was exactly the sort of opera that I keep going back to Glyndebourne to see.

Semele at Glyndebourne Festival 2023

Semele was another new production for Glyndebourne this year and another opera that I did not know so the decision to see it was made on it being by Handel and having friends who were keen to see it.

The ballot gods had been good to me this year and I sot seat Upper Circle D23 for a respectable £146.

Unfortunately the keen friends had to drop out at the last moment and I had to frantically try and find someone else to take. I was half successful and got one substitute for the two spare seats.

Panic over, the plan resumed its normal course and we caught the train down to Lewes giving us a couple of hours there for lunch and walking prior to the coach to Glyndebourne.

We had lunch in The Depot, close to Lewes Station, before going for a little walk. On previous trips to Lewes we had been up to the historic town and the castle and to the delightful Southover Grange Gardens so this time we headed in a different direction and were more surprised than we should have been to discover Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve just west of where we had lunch so many times. 

The Nature Reserve was in the middle of some improvements and the gravel paths were much welcomed and group of weed smoking yoof were a little thrown by two ridiculously dressed people walking through the woods carrying a picnic basket.

The pre-booked coach got us to Glyndebourne a little later than hoped and with poor weather forecast for later we were delighted that our late substitute guest had managed to grab one of the very few unbooked benches on the upper deck of the opera house complex. A great result.

The rain was not due for a couple of hours so we had plenty of time for coffee and cake, a walk around the gardens and some bubbly.

We were pretty well dead centre of the auditorium and the view was excellent.

The staging was simple, which I like, with something odd in the middle which was more confusing than helpful.

Handel music was lovely and superbly played by Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment played on period instruments, an approach I loved from my first encounter with it some thirty plus years ago.

The story, apparently based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was a simple story of jealously and revenge. Being simple meant it was easy to follow and the jealousy and revenge gave Handel rich emotions to work with. I think we made one mistake though and I would have left out the final scene and ended with the Chorus of Priests singing Oh, terror and astonishment! which ends with the line "And all our boasted fire is lost in smoke.". But that might just be because I like dark endings,

The singing rather let the show down. The choir was good but for reasons that I know too little about music to explain none of the soloists sparkled and the singing failed to live up to the music.

Semele has sold very well and an additional performance has been squeezed into the schedule which suggests that it might be revived in two or three years. If it is then I will probably only be tempted back if someone is keen to be taken or I want to take a risk on cheap seats,

Dialogues des Carmélites at Glyndebourne Festival 2023

My interest in seeing Dialogues des Carmélites at Glyndebourne was almost entirely due to having seen in a few years ago when on holiday in Košice, Slovakia when it made little sense to me as it was sung in French with Slovak sur-titles. 

As the image for the production shows, it is not a happy story either so I was a little surprised when some friends suggested that they would like to go too.

Dates were arranged and we got our seats in Red Upper Circle Row C for £146. Glyndebourne does do cheaper seats, and much more expensive ones, but I think that the Upper Circle offers best value.

Our friends offered to drive us down which was the only time that we planned to travel by car this year, for the other five visits the train was taking the strain. The journey went ok, and we arrived almost spot on 3pm (by which time the gardens were just opening and the car park was already half full), but it was more stressful and cramped than the train would have been.

The pre-opera session went much as usual with some cake, hot drinks from a hut in the hamlet, the first bottle of bubbly and a walk around the gardens. The flower beds all looked glorious and it was a very pleasant walk even having done it so many times before.

The opera itself got off to a good start with a very simple set, two marble effect walls converging at the back of the stage. 

This staging was used throughout with some furniture coming and going as the scenes changed, and there were a lot of scenes. It was very effective and again proved my point that simple staging works best.

The other feature of the production that struck me early on was the way that the characters often learnt against or stood next to the side walls when there was no dramatic reason for doing so. I had noticed the same thing in another production a few years ago and I hope that there was a connection. I found this effective also as it draw attention to the characters in a way that standing in the middle would not have done.

I only half-knew the story from my previous experience of the opera and the blurp provided by Glyndebourne to entice me to buy tickets and filling in the gaps as the evening progressed helped to join the dots but also revealed the weaknesses in the story, despite it being based on a real incident during the French Reign of Terror. 

But this is opera and the point of the story is to provide the framework for the music and it did that admirably. Given the dramatic ending of the story (again I refer to the artwork above) it is no surprise that the music ended dramatically too and the final scene was a triumph.

If left the singing to last simply because there is nothing very much to say about that, I expect great singing at Glyndebourne and, once again, I got it.

Dialogues des Carmélites was a very worth addition to the Glyndebourne Festival and reminded me, if I needed it, why I keep going there.

Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne Festival 2023

In many ways my second visit to Glyndebourne in 2023 was more successful than the first.

Travelling on a weekday avoided engineering works and getting there and back was easy, despite the much later finish. We were going with regular friends so arrangements regarding food and drink were easier. And, having found the new Veg Patch Stretch Tent, we knew where we wanted to sit.

Making a day of it, we arrived in Lewes about two hours before the coach to Glyndebourne. We headed to The Depot as usual and as it was a little early for lunch we had some hot drinks and a cake before heading in to town.

We did not have to go very far to find The Rights of Man pub where we went for a drink and were tempted to stay for lunch.

We ended our sojourn in Lewes with a walk through Southover Grange Gardens simply because it is pretty.

At Glyndebourne, the pre-opera session followed the usual pattern of some drinks and a walk around the lake. It is remarkable how quickly those two hours can go when in good company.

At 5pm we went into the opera house and took our seats in Upper Circle Row D (£165). Good central seats with fine views despite being almost at the back of the auditorium.

Don Giovanni was an opera of two halves.

In some ways it is the definitive opera, like Swan Lake is the definitive ballet, with excellent music and a strong story. These were reinforced with faultless playing and singing. Musically it was a triumph.

However, the set just did not work for me. The basic construct looked like a southern states brothel and remained like that throughout pretending to be, amongst other things, a public square, a garden and a graveyard. If I had not known the story beforehand I would have had no idea what was going on.

My probably simplistic view of Glyndebourne is that when I first went the sets did very little and they let the music do all the work whereas now the sets are competing for attention and sometimes, like here, they get in the way.

It was a real shame as the performance was superb and I loved the music but my lasting memory will be of the set.

L’elisir d’amore at Glyndebourne Festival 2023

Organising a Glyndebourne Festival each year takes a lot of effort to sort out who to take to which operas on which dates, and that is after taking a more brutal approach in recent years in giving guests much less choice. 

So it is always great when first the booking confirmations comes though and we know which dates we have got tickets for and then when we actually get to go.

Of course there is still all the food, drink and picnic location to sort out but these are easier choices to make, particularly as it is easy to buy drinks and snacks there. This time we travelled light with just two bags (plus a bottle) with a quiche and obvious accompaniments for main course and fruit and cream for dessert.

Travel should be an easy thing to sort out too but we slightly screwed up. We left it too late to book the coach from Lewes Station so decided to sort something out once we got there. And we got there an hour later than planned due to engineering works on the Waterloo/Woking line which made our train to Clapham Junction late and so we missed the connection to Lewes. 

We tried Plan B, a train to Brighton then a train back to Lewes but the Brighton trained arrived already packed with people standing. So we played safe and went back to Victoria and caught the next direct train to Lewes. Even that was not simple as it was almost as busy as the Brighton train but we got on it early enough to find a seat. By the time we left all seats were taken.

We arrived at Lewes too late to safely have lunch before fighting to get a taxi to Glyndebourne so we were adventurous and took a local bus to Ringmer and walked the last mile along the country road to Glyndebourne. This obviously surprised many people and about a dozen stopped to offer us a lift, which we always politely declined saying that we were enjoying the walk.

Thanks to this excellent planning we arrived at Glyndebourne just as the gardens opened, though they were already pretty busy by then.

Our search for a suitable picnic spot took us first to the boathouse, a pretty location but lacking in shade, and then in to the new Veg Patch Stretch Tent which met all our needs perfectly. This immediately became our preferred spot.

Our guests arrived soon after and the afternoon was underway. This included an early walk around the lake and some Pimms. Nothing new there.

We did well in the ballot this year and for this performance we were in Row B of the central section of Upper Circle, the area we always sit in.

As you can see, the view from there is very good. You may also be able to see that the surtitles say "Photography is strictly forbidden...".

The uncomplicated set, showing a village square, was used like this throughout with only a few props, like a table and some chairs, coming and going to change the scene. It did the job perfectly.

L’elisir d’amore is a simple and silly love story and this production upped the humour with some nice touches that added to the entertainment without distracting from the main theme of boy wants to marry girl but bigger boy also wants to marry here and is easily winning the battle until a miracle happens. Again, all very standard stuff but there's nothing wrong with that.

As always with opera, it is the music that really mattered and this was exemplary. There was a little choral singing but this was mostly one of two people singing at a time either to each other with love or rejection or to us with sadness or triumph. All of the soloists were superb and the opera's stand out aria Una furtiva lagrima (A furtive tear) sung by the distraught lover stood out a lot, almost enough to make me join in with the clapping but there are rules about this sort of thing. Indeed, the clapping and bravoing almost became annoying as it frequently intruded upon and interrupted the flow of the music. Luckily the show was good enough to brush off these blemishes.

After the show we took our time to leave having a coffee and more cake before doing so. The journey was again disrupted by the engineering works but we got home around midnight, which was fine.

L’elisir d’amore was a fine start to Glyndebourne Festival 2023. More like that please!

Akhnaten at ENO (2023)

I have often been remiss in keeping this blog up to date so I am not certain how many times I have seen Akhnaten but I have certainly seen every production at ENO. 

My online calendar is more help and that tells me that I have seen this production at ENO three times, on screen at Barbican once and online from the MET in New York once, and that my Akhnaten journey started in Ghent in 2015.

As always for Akhnaten I booked a seat in the front row of Dress Circle (A51) which cost me a perfectly reasonable £110. I booked it in July 2022 as soon as booking opened.

 

I try to find a regular place to eat for all of my regular theatres and for Coliseum, and other Central London venues, it is Govinda’s vegetarian restaurant just off Soho Square. There the standard thali is a ridiculously low £6.95 and it is very tasty too.

Having seen this production five times (or more) I knew what to expect, and that is what I got.

Akhnaten keeps coming back and keeps being completely sold out because it is a phenomenal work.

Obviously that starts with the music by Philip Glass and it builds from there. The playing and the singing are excellent and the staging adds so much tension and drama with lots of slow graceful movement and also a prodigious amount to juggling to compliment the Glass motif rhythms.

The only negative was that ENO is under threat due to funding cuts and so this may well be the last time that I get to see this Akhnaten. I hope their fight to stay is successful because while there are other places that do operas in London none of them has ENO's repertoire. Yes, places outside of London should have companies like ENO too but that does not mean that London should lose its.

L’amico Fritz at Opera Holland Park

I know why I go to Glyndebourne (the whole experience) and why I do not go to Royal Opera House (too expensive for what it is) but I am not sure why I have been avoiding Opera Holland Park. 

Some of it is, I think, the lack of original programming. There is a limit to how often I want to see any opera even one as good as, say, Carmen or Madama Butterfly, and my only previous visit to Opera Holland Park was in 2015 to see the exceptional modern opera Flight that I had seen previously at Glyndebourne (twice).

Some of it is also the relatively poor visitor experience and I had bad memories of slow unmanaged queues for drinks. I know it is not trying to be Glyndebourne but I had been disappointed on my first, and only, visit.

All that said, when our eldest son offered to take us to see the unknown to us L’amico Fritz by Pietro Mascagni we quickly agreed.

Pre-opera meant a short walk up from Hammersmith, to keep the daily step count up, and a rather excellent supper at Megan's on the High Street by the entrance to Holland Park. The brief shower of rain did nothing to dampen our spirits.

We got to Opera Holland Park about half an hour before the performance, as planned, and went straight for the bubbly. Our son arrived soon after and the glasses of bubbly were followed by a bottle.

We were still under covid-19 restrictions which helped by reducing the numbers and simplifying some of the procedures, such as queuing for drinks! It was all very pleasant.

The restrictions also meant a big change in the seating, gone were the standard stadium seats and in were dining chairs arranged in small groups with gaps between them. These gaps helped to compensate for the lack of raking and I had a good view of the stage. We learned later that all the chairs has been used as props at theatres and were being given a second life here. 

L’amico Fritz is a light comedy with one of the simplest plots ever staged, a rich young man and a confirmed bachelor falls in love with the local farmer's daughter, and she with him, but it takes them about an hour to realise this, which is long after everyone else has.

The music was simple, to my untrained ear, and jolly. It skipped along evenly without any great highs or lows. Like the plot, it was pleasant and easily appreciated.

The singing was sumptuous, especially by the two leads and what could have been a light meal became a rich feast. I loved it.

That may have done enough to tempt me back to Opera Holland Park sooner rather than later, we will see.

Il turco in Italia at Glyndebourne (2021)

I will come on to the opera but after a year and a half of covid this was the story of returning to Glyndebourne.

Covid restrictions meant far few tickets available and instead of getting four tickets for six operas, as we usually do, we got two tickets for three operas. That was fine with us bit not so good for our regular guests.

There being just the two of us and we having made the brave, and sensible, decision to get rid of our car almost two years ago meant that we had to go by train, which we had done before. The only slight difference was that we had to pre-book the coach from Lewes Station to/from Glyndebourne.

We allowed reasonable contingency for getting to Clapham Junction, where we joined the Lewes train, and being ready early with nothing else to do led us to set of earlier than our cautious plan suggested. The upshot was we managed to catch the train an hour before the one we were meant to catch. That worked in our favour and we were able to have a leisurely drink sitting in the shade on a hot sunny day.

Arriving at Glyndebourne we managed to get our target bench at the end of the long border. Bench claimed we headed off to find a cup of tea and to explore the gardens. The covid changes were many and obvious, the most obvious being the reduced number of people which meant that the popular lawns looked almost deserted. The Long Bar was no longer selling alcohol but we wanted tea so that was all right.

The gardens were on their usual magnificent form and there was plenty of art, old and new, to enjoy.

Being cautious again we rechecked the weather forecast and the rain expected at 9pm had come forward to 6pm so we judiciously moved to a bench under the cover of the opera house. In the end there was only a little rain but it was enough for umbrellas and enough to have disrupted our sumptuous rolls if we had stayed outside.

Inside we were in Upper Circle Rear seats F25/26. Familiar territory.

I did not know the opera at all and, unlike me, I red the synopsis beforehand. It sounded very confusing, and perhaps it was, though it was so well told that I was able to follow the love pentangle which was the story that the narrator of the opera was struggling to write.

The production was fabulous with all sorts of gimmicks that managed to be clever without being gimmicky. For example, when the author was working on his story we saw what he was writing, and rewriting, on a back projection. I particularly loved the one aria from the fifth man in the pentangle which was done in the style of Freddie Mercury complete with white vest and swirling jacket.

The opera was a farce and the music was more flimsy than dramatic but two things make this an excellent opera, firstly the production which I mentioned earlier and secondly was the singing. The singing was sublime throughout, as it usually is at Glyndebourne.

Despite covid, Glyndebourne was very much the Glyndebourne I knew and loved and it was fantastic to be back there.

Coraline at Barbican Theatre

I have no idea where the idea to turn Neil Gaiman's children's book Coraline into a opera came from but it was an interesting one, especially as the music was written by Mark-Anthony Turnage.

I was interested enough to fork out £37.50 for Seat A32 in the Circle. That interest came mostly from Neil Gaiman though I had only seen the film and had not read the book; I had read other books and shed-loads of comics. I was interested to hear Mark-Anthony Turnage's music too.

The timing of the performance meant that I had to have lunch at Barbican Kitchen and a sandwich with a coffee did the trick. I was a little worried but not surprised to see so many children around. I was worried that either they were in the wrong show and would be rowdy or I would be in the wrong show and would be bored. I was relying on the description "opera' rather than "musical" to give it a serious edge. I would probably not have gone to see a Coraline musical.

Somehow we were both right and Coraline managed to keep both the children and the grown-ups engaged. I cannot possibly comment on what children thought of the show (apart from the young girl who was screaming in terror in the interval that she wanted to go home) but I will try and describe how I felt about it.

I loved Coraline.

Firstly it was a proper opera that made little or no concessions to the children other than being a story that I presume they were all familiar with. All of the words were sung and there were no sur-titles to check against. Fortunately all of the singers were absolutely clear and could be understood perfectly. That is not always true for operas sung in English.

The music was modern without being experimental, and it sounded like an opera and nothing like a musical. The set was child-friendly but then Coraline is a child so that was fair. It also did some clever things as it became one room then another with doors to move between them.

And, of course, the story was a good one. I had forgotten some of the details of the story so I was interested to see what happened too. It was told in a mature way, as all the best children's stories are, and there was a genuine sense of menace about it; that girl was terrified for a reason.

At the heart of it all were Coraline and her two mothers and they both sang beautifully.

Coraline the opera knew what it was doing and did it all very well. 

La Boheme at Normansfield Theatre

Opera at Normansfield Theatre hits so many good buttons that I have to have a very good reason not to go and, luckily, nothing got in the way of this performance of La Boheme.

One of the good buttons if that the concerts are for charity and so I was more than happy to part with £20 for my ticket. Another one is the location and despite the intense cold and the presence of some some snow I enjoyed the forty minute walk there.

My timing was good enough for us to claim four seats in the front row with our coats before disappearing down to the basement to make another donation to charity (and get a beer).

La Boheme was presented by Villa InCanto who I had seen before. They have a simple and effective technique that works very well. The leader, Riccardo Serenelli, introduced the opera and then each of the four scenes before taking his place at the piano leaving the stage to the the flower girl Mimi, her beloved poet Rodolfo, his friend the painter Marcello and his love the fickle Musetta. I had seen La Boheme several times and, even so, I found the introductions useful.

The four singers Zarah Hible, Renato Cordeiro, Jorge Tello Rodrigues and Elise Lefay were all very good. Indeed this was the best ensemble that I could recall hearing, usually there is one singer who standouts for being slightly above or below the standard of the others but not this time.

The setting helped too with the intimate atmosphere of the small theatre and the seating arranged in a horseshoe making it a very personal performance.

Everything about the evening was lovely (except the weather!) and once again I was reminded of just how lucky I am to have a special place like Normansfield Theatre on my doorstep.

Satyagraha at ENO is a delightful tradittion

ENO have got into the habit of staging Philip Glass' opera Satyagraha every few years and I have gladly fallen into the habit of going to see it every time. This time I made it a real treat and went for Dress Circle A29 for £106.25.

The evening got off to a less than brilliant start as once again Pizza Express failed to live up to the Express part of the name but we were served eventually and the Pizza was nice.

My seat in the Dress Circle was very nice too with an excellent view. The first thing that struck me was how small the orchestra was, they used up about half of the pit. I realised later why that was, the music in Satyagraha was relatively quiet throughout with the noise coming, when there was noise, from the large chorus. A great deal of the time there was not much noise and the mood was very gentle, as you would expect when the subject is Gandhi.

Satyagraha did not tell a story as such, though there were some narrative elements. It consisted of three tableau, each about fifty minutes long, showing scenes from the period that Gandhi lived in South Africa. This was actually quite a long period, from 1893 to 1914, during which he secured significant legal concessions for the local Indian population.

For the best part of three hours, punctuated with a couple of short breaks for ice creams, we had images of newspapers, shoes, cellophane, jackets, beats, houses all of which were presented in almost slow motion to the famous rhythms of Philip Glass and the sumptuous singing of the soloists and chorus.

It was every bit as delightful as it had been when I saw it before and as I hope it will be when I see it next time.