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Benjamin Britten
Billy Budd Glyndebourne’s proud association with the operas of Benjamin Britten stretches from its world premiere productions of The Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring in 1946 and 1947 through to Jonathan Kent’s 2007 Festival staging of The Turn of the Screw, taking in memorable reappraisals of Peter Grimes, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Owen Wingrave and Death in Venice along the way. However, Glyndebourne has never, until now, staged Billy Budd, the 1951 all-male opera, with a libretto co-written by E. M. Forster. Based on Herman Melville’s allegorical tale about the battle between pure good and blind evil, the opera takes place amidships on a British man-o’-war. Michael Grandage has chosen this work to make his long-awaited operatic debut. He is the Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse in London and is the recipient of Olivier, Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle and South Bank Show awards for his work. With a string of Glyndebourne successes behind him (most recently the 2006 Festival revival of Fidelio, now released on the Glyndebourne CD label), Sir Mark Elder returns to conduct this new production. The cast includes South African baritone Jacques Imbrailo (winner of the Audience Prize at the 2007 Cardiff Singer of the World) as Billy, the saintly but flawed foretopman; Canadian bass Phillip Ens as Claggart, the black-hearted Master-at-Arms (a role he has previously sung in Cardiff, San Francisco and Munich), and British tenor John Mark Ainsley (winner of the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Singer Award), making his first UK appearance as ‘starry’ Vere, the Captain whose temporary loss of moral compass leads to tragedy at sea.
study event Sunday 16 May, Ebert Room Pre-performance talks Sunday 23 May Sunday 27 June See pages 14–15 for more details
CAST INCLUDES: Captain Vere John Mark Ainsley Billy Budd Jacques Imbrailo Claggart Phillip Ens Mr Redburn Iain Paterson Mr Flint Matthew Rose Lieutenant Ratcliffe Darren Jeffery Red Whiskers Alasdair Elliott Donald John Moore Dansker Jeremy White Squeak Colin Judson Bosun Richard Mosley-Evans
photograph KURT HUTTON/GETTY IMAGES
Britten, Forster and friends discuss the first production of Billy Budd (1949).
A NEW PRODUCTION FOR THE 2010 FESTIVAL Sung in English with supertitles Conductor Mark Elder Director Michael Grandage Designer Christopher Oram Lighting Designer Paule Constable London Philharmonic Orchestra The Glyndebourne Chorus By kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Così fan tutte
Mozart and da Ponte’s final collaboration is a painfully funny, sometimes wickedly cynical comedy in which two callow, and perhaps slightly callous, young lads take on a bet to seduce one another’s girlfriends. Amid the ensuing confusions and conflicts, the often laughable attempts of both sexes to control their deepest feelings are stripped bare to some of the most enticingly seductive and heartbreakingly honest music ever written. Much acclaimed for its dramatic truthfulness, deft wit and emotionally penetrating insights, Nicholas Hytner’s elegantly classical period staging returns with a fresh young cast of lovers – featuring Sally Matthews (an adorable Lauretta in 2004’s Gianni Schicchi) and Allan Clayton (the wide-eyed hero of 2008’s Albert Herring) alongside Norwegian mezzo Tuva Semmingsen (who sang Cenerentola for Glyndebourne in the 2005 Tour) and Canadian bass-baritone Robert Gleadow, both making their Festival debuts – under the seasoned direction of the supreme Mozartian conductor, Sir Charles Mackerras.
photograph Mike Hoban
A REVIVAL OF THE 2006 FESTIVAL PRODUCTION Sung in Italian with English supertitles Conductors Charles Mackerras / James Gaffigan (from 18 June) Director Nicholas Hytner Revival Director Ashley Dean Designer Vicki Mortimer Lighting Designer Paule Constable
CAST: Fiordiligi Sally Matthews Dorabella Tuva Semmingsen Ferrando Allan Clayton Guglielmo Robert Gleadow Don Alfonso Pietro Spagnoli Despina Anna Maria Panzarella
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment The Glyndebourne Chorus 5
Giuseppe Verdi
Macbeth Supported by Jon and Julia Aisbitt
‘This tragedy is one of the greatest creations of man! If we can’t do something great with it, let us at least try to do something out of the ordinary …’ So wrote Verdi to his librettist, Piave, when starting work on his adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish play’. And, while no-one now doubts that the resulting opera marked a magnificent milestone in the composer’s mastery of dramatic writing, Richard Jones’s tartanclad take on it lives up to Verdi’s words in being nothing if not wildly and wonderfully ‘out of the ordinary’. This broodingly fatalistic staging is conducted for this revival by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s Principal Conductor, Vasily Petrenko, recently hailed by The Times as a ‘Russian wizard’ following his transformation of the orchestra’s artistic profile. Polish baritone Andrzej Dobber (last heard here as Kurwenal in the 2009 Festival’s Tristan und Isolde) reprises his interpretation of the murderously ambitious, but ultimately nihilistic thane, while SwedishAmerican soprano Erika Sunnegårdh makes her Festival debut as the axe-wielding Lady Macbeth, whose guilt-haunted sleep-walking scene is one of the unforgettable highlights of this dazzlingly inventive score.
photograph Mike Hoban
A REVIVAL OF THE 2007 FESTIVAL PRODUCTION Sung in Italian with English supertitles Conductor Vasily Petrenko Director Richard Jones Revival Director Geoffrey DOlton Designer Ultz Lighting Designer Wolfgang Göbbel Movement Director Linda Dobell
CAST INCLUDES: Lady Macbeth Erika Sunnegårdh Macbeth Andrzej Dobber Banquo Stanislav Shvets Macduff Yonghoon Lee
London Philharmonic Orchestra The Glyndebourne Chorus 7
Giuseppe Verdi
Macbeth Supported by Jon and Julia Aisbitt
‘This tragedy is one of the greatest creations of man! If we can’t do something great with it, let us at least try to do something out of the ordinary …’ So wrote Verdi to his librettist, Piave, when starting work on his adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish play’. And, while no-one now doubts that the resulting opera marked a magnificent milestone in the composer’s mastery of dramatic writing, Richard Jones’s tartanclad take on it lives up to Verdi’s words in being nothing if not wildly and wonderfully ‘out of the ordinary’. This broodingly fatalistic staging is conducted for this revival by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s Principal Conductor, Vasily Petrenko, recently hailed by The Times as a ‘Russian wizard’ following his transformation of the orchestra’s artistic profile. Polish baritone Andrzej Dobber (last heard here as Kurwenal in the 2009 Festival’s Tristan und Isolde) reprises his interpretation of the murderously ambitious, but ultimately nihilistic thane, while SwedishAmerican soprano Erika Sunnegårdh makes her Festival debut as the axe-wielding Lady Macbeth, whose guilt-haunted sleep-walking scene is one of the unforgettable highlights of this dazzlingly inventive score.
photograph Mike Hoban
A REVIVAL OF THE 2007 FESTIVAL PRODUCTION Sung in Italian with English supertitles Conductor Vasily Petrenko Director Richard Jones Revival Director Geoffrey DOlton Designer Ultz Lighting Designer Wolfgang Göbbel Movement Director Linda Dobell
CAST INCLUDES: Lady Macbeth Erika Sunnegårdh Macbeth Andrzej Dobber Banquo Stanislav Shvets Macduff Yonghoon Lee
London Philharmonic Orchestra The Glyndebourne Chorus 7
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Don Giovanni Supported by Handel and Yvonne Evans
Mozart’s second collaboration with the mercurial librettist Lorenzo da Ponte is among the very blackest of black comedies. For its first new production of the opera in 10 years, Glyndebourne is pleased to welcome back the winning team of director Jonathan Kent and designer Paul Brown, while the conducting is shared between Festival Music Director, Vladimir Jurowski, and the new Music Director of Glyndebourne on Tour, Jakub Hr˘uša.
Anatomia humani corporis (1685) by Govard Bidloo
In the title role we also welcome back the great bass-baritone Gerald Finley, who has appeared in many Glyndebourne productions since joining the Chorus in 1986 – not least in the title role of Le nozze di Figaro at the opening of the new house in 1994. He has sung Don Giovanni to worldwide acclaim in New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, Budapest and Prague. He is joined by Luca Pisaroni (Guglielmo in the 2006 Festival’s Così fan tutte) as Leporello, Kate Royal (the Governess in Jonathan Kent’s 2006 staging of The Turn of the Screw) as Donna Elvira, and the young Russian soprano Anna Samuil making her UK opera debut as Donna Anna.
A NEW PRODUCTION FOR THE 2010 FESTIVAL Sung in Italian with English supertitles Conductor Vladimir Jurowski / Jakub HrU ša (from 31 July) Director Jonathan Kent Designer Paul Brown Lighting Designer Mark Henderson Movement Director Denni Sayers
CAST: Il Commendatore MATS ALMGREN Donna Anna Anna Samuil Don Ottavio William Burden Don Giovanni Gerald FinlEy Leporello Luca Pisaroni Donna Elvira Kate Royal Zerlina ISABEL Leonard Masetto GUIDO LOCONSOLO
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment The Glyndebourne Chorus 9
Engelbert Humperdinck
Hänsel und Gretel
With its familiar fairy-tale story, feel-good ending and magical mix of simple folk tunes and rich Wagnerian textures, Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel has long cast its musical spell over both adults and children alike. Laurent Pelly’s deliciously witty 2008 production with an underlying subtext of modern consumerism, sees the broom-maker’s two outcast children lose their way in the enchanted forest before finding themselves in every hungry child’s dream. Glyndebourne on Tour’s current Music Director, Robin Ticciati, conducted this production on Tour in 2008, shortly before conducting the opera again for his Covent Garden debut. Now Principal Conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, he returns to Glyndebourne to conduct a largely new cast, led by the British mezzo Alice Coote (who made her Festival debut as Nero in L’incoronazione di Poppea in 2008) and the young German soprano Lydia Teuscher (here making her UK opera debut) as the two innocent children, with Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke reprising his role as the witch.
photograph Mike Hoban
A REVIVAL OF THE 2008 festival PRODUCTION Sung in German with English supertitles Conductor Robin Ticciati Director Laurent Pelly Revival Director Stéphane Marlot Set Designer Barbara de Limburg Stirum Costume Designer Laurent Pelly Lighting Designer Joël Adam
CAST: Hänsel Alice Coote Gretel Lydia Teuscher Mother Irmgard Vilsmaier Father William Dazeley Witch Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
London Philharmonic Orchestra The Glyndebourne Chorus 11
Igor Stravinsky
The Rake’s Progress Supported by
and Carol and Paul Collins
Inspired by William Hogarth’s famous cycle of satirical prints, and blessed with one of the cleverest librettos in all opera – courtesy of the poet W. H. Auden and his friend Chester Kallman – Stravinsky’s 1951 opera (whose Venice premiere was, coincidentally, directed by Glyndebourne’s then producer, Carl Ebert) is a modern musical morality play. The ‘hero’ Tom Rakewell, signs a Faustian pact with the devil, swaps the simple country life and a devoted sweetheart for the vain pursuit of big-city bonuses and increasingly exotic pleasures (climaxing in a loveless marriage to the bearded lady from a local fair) and ends up bankrupt and insane in Bedlam. Framed within David Hockney’s delightfully post-Hogarthian cross-hatched designs, John Cox’s 1975 Glyndebourne Festival production proved an instant classic. Last revived for millennium year, it is now conducted for the first time at Glyndebourne by the Festival’s Music Director, Vladimir Jurowski. Finnish tenor Topi Lehtipuu and Swedish soprano Miah Persson – previously heard together as Ferrando and Fiordiligi in the original 2006 run of Nicholas Hytner’s Così fan tutte – are reunited as poor mad Tom and his true love Anne, with Matthew Rose (winner of the John Christie Award in 2006) as the Mephistophelian tempter, Nick Shadow. 12
‘If ever a production was in danger of becoming more famous than the opera itself, it is this one’
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Pre-performance PRE-PERFORMANCEtalks TALKS Sunday Sunday8 8August August Sunday Sunday2929August August See Seepages pages14–15 14–15forformore moredetails details
PRE-PERFORMANCE PRE-PERFORMANCETALKS TALKS
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photograph Mike Hoban PHOTOGRAPH MIKE HOBAN
“I“Idon’t I have don’tthink think I haveever ever Conductor Vladimir Conductor VLADIMIRJurowski JUROWSKI witnessed a more perfect Cox witnessedDirector aDirector moreJohn perfect JOHN COX realisation Wagner Designer David realisationof of Wagner Designer DAVIDHockney HOCKNEY Lighting Designer Robert opera than this superb Lighting Designer ROBERTBryan BRYAN opera than this superb Tristan und Isolde.” Tristan und ByIsolde.” kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes
CAST: CAST: Father FatherTrulove TruloveClive CLIVEBayley BAYLEY Anne AnneTrulove TruloveMiah MIAHPersson PERSSON Tom TomRakewell RakewellTopi TOPILehtipuu LEHTIPUU Nick Shadow Matthew Nick Shadow MATTHEWRose ROSE Mother Gorton MotherGoose GooseSusan SUSAN GORTON Baba Babathe theTurk TurkElena ELENAManistina MANISTINA Sellem SellemGraham GRAHAMClark CLARK
By kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes
The Music TheDaily DailyTelegraph Telegraph MusicPublishers PublishersLtd Ltd
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