Glyndebourne Festival

Executive summary by darmansjah

Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an English opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.

In 1968, Glyndebourne Festival Opera established a touring ensemble, Glyndebourne Touring Opera, which in its first season took opera productions to Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and Oxford. In addition to bringing the work of Glyndebourne Festival Opera to audiences some distance from Glyndebourne, Glyndebourne Touring Opera offers opportunities for younger opera singers to develop their craft. In 2003, the Glyndebourne Touring Opera administrative duties were absorbed back into the main Glyndebourne Festival Opera administration, and the touring company was renamed Glyndebourne On Tour. Unlike Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Glyndebourne On Tour does receive some subsidy, from the Arts Council England.

The schedule involves three weeks of performances at Glyndebourne, and then one week in each of the six cities and towns that the touring company visits each year. The music directors of Glyndebourne Touring Opera and Glyndebourne on Tour are separate from the Glyndebourne Festival Opera music directors. The list of the Glyndebourne Touring Opera/Glyndebourne on Tour music directors is as follows:

    Myer Fredman (1968–1974)

    Kenneth Montgomery (1975–1976)

    Nicholas Braithwaite (1977–1980)

    Jane Glover (1982–1985)  

    Graeme Jenkins (1986–1991)

    Ivor Bolton (1992–1997)

    Louis Langrée (1998–2003)

    Edward Gardner (2004–2007) 

    Robin Ticciati (2007–2009)

    Jakub Hrůša (2010–present)

Ticciati is the first former music director of Glyndebourne on Tour to be named music director of the full Glyndebourne Opera company.

Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, except in 1941-45 during World War II and 1993 when the theatre was being rebuilt. The renovated theatre opened in 1994. Gus Christie, son of Sir George Christie and grandson of festival founder John Christie, became festival chairman in 2000.

Glyndebourne House, August 1, 2006

Since the company's inception, Glyndebourne Opera is particularly celebrated for its productions of Mozart operas. Recordings of Glyndebourne's past historic Mozart productions have been reissued. Other notable productions included their 1980s production of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, directed by Trevor Nunn, and later expanded from the Glyndebourne stage and videotaped in 1993 for television, with Nunn again directing. Mozart operas have continued to be the mainstay of its repertory, but the company has expanded its repertoire with productions of Janáček and Handel operas.

The primary resident orchestra for the Glyndebourne Festival is the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The festival's associate orchestra is the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Since January 2001, the festival's music director was Vladimir Jurowski; he stepped down from the post at the end of the 2013 season. In July 2011, the festival announced Robin Ticciati as its seventh music director, as of January 2014.

David Pickard is the current general director of the festival. The festival operates without subsidy. Its first placement of advertisements was in 2003. The festival has planned to incorporate power by wind turbine, as part of its "green" initiatives.

Many Glyndebourne attendees come from London, and Glyndebourne is regarded as part of the London/English summer season. Performances start in the afternoon, enabling Londoners to leave town after lunch, and finish in time for them to catch the last train back. A long interval allows opera-goers the opportunity for picnic dinners on the extensive lawns or in one of the restaurants in the grounds. Annually in London, the company presents an opera performance at The Proms