Le nozze di Figaro /Glyndebourne

Glyndebourne is so efficiently run and the production values so high you are pretty much guaranteed an enjoyable evening – though you pay for it. For my regular companion this is her treat, which she calls her holiday. So I lay on the Ritz with a limo service, champagne and picnic lakeside in the lovely grounds.

We both agreed that, whilst  enjoying opera, we are no buffs – unable to appreciate an outstanding performance though able to detect a poor one. This one fell I think into the  former category with memorable performances from all the female singers, notably Golda Schultz as the Countess, Rosa Feola as Susanna, who is on stage virtually the whole time and Natasha Kawaleka as Cherubino. The enjoyment does not just stop with fine singing but a revolving stage which is beautifully set and lit. My only criticism was the sixties dress. The director says this was to emphasise the last decade of master/servant, the essence of comic opera. This rather misses the point that nearly 300 years ago Mozart could write a opera on the willfulness of women (Susanna) who runs rings round the men just as most film heroines now do.

With high ticket prices you might expect  the corp0rates but ,no, the  standard opera goer here is I suspect  a housemaster in a public  school. Dress  standards are more relaxed  which is sad and it should be a glamorous and formal aoccasion . Though in Italain  the audience appreccaited much of the humour of ” opera buffa” ( comic opera).

All in all an excellent outing and evening..,. And one you could not better at home .