Glyndebourne Festival 2021

[Belgrove]

Glyndebourne has announced its plans for the 2021 Festival, dates to be confirmed:

Janáček– Kat'a Kabanova (new production), LPO, Robin Ticciati
Mozart – Die Zauberflöte, OAE, Constantin Trinks
Rossini – Il Turco in Italia (new production), LPO, Giancarlo Andretta
Mozart – Così fan tutte, OAE, Riccardo Minasi
Verdi – Luisa Miller (new production), LPO, Enrique Mazzola
Wagner – Tristan und Isolde, LPO, Robin Ticciati

[bluestateprommer]

New announcement on Glyndebourne 2021:

https://www.glyndebourne.com/festival/festival-2021-update/

"...from 20 May until 29 August, with some small changes to our previously published plans.

New productions of Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanová, Rossini’s Il turco in Italia and Verdi’s Luisa Miller will appear alongside revivals of our much-loved Così fan tutte and, in a semi-staged concert version, Wagner’s epic Tristan und Isolde. Unfortunately we’re unable to perform Die Zauberflöte as hoped but are delighted that our resident orchestras, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, will instead take centre stage in a series of specially curated concerts....

The auditorium will be physically distanced and, together with a reduction in the number of performances, this means that there are fewer seats available this year."

[Bax-of-Delights]

Booked in for Kat’a Kabanova and the Rossini being the two I haven’t seen before. The other three are already sold out but if restrictions are lifted later in the season when those three are scheduled then further tickets will be released.

Glyndebourne are also having four “concerts” and have booked for Mahler 4 and Brahms 1.

[Belgrove]

We saw Tristan & Isolde at Glyndebourne on Tuesday; these comments seem best placed here rather than the Proms thread, but perhaps give an idea of what to expect. Our temperatures were taken prior to entry, and exiting the auditorium was managed to prevent congestion at the doors. Very well executed and carefully thought through. One felt safe - and the sun shone, so all was right with the world for a few precious hours.

Apart from (the pre-recorded?) off-stage horns missing their first cue in Act 2, it was a quite magnificent semi-staged performance. The lack of a set did not detract since Tristan is such a static work anyway, the drama takes place in the orchestra which was at full strength and arrayed on stage with the performers in front of them on a platform above the orchestra pit. Subtle and effective lighting managed the transitions from one episode to the next. The two principals stayed the course (and one cannot always guarantee that), Simon O’Neill navigated the terrors of the final Act through careful pacing in the earlier acts. Miina-Liisa Värela’s voice is not the biggest, which it need not be for a venue the size of Glyndebourne. She created that rare effect of seemingly to detach the voice and let it climb into the aether on the final ‘Lust’ - quite beautiful. John Relyea was indisposed to play Marke, but we were treated to Brindley Sherratt who stood in at short notice, and perhaps provided the best singing of the evening. Marke’s narration can often derail a performance in the wrong hands of performer and conductor through bringing it to a shuddering halt, but here it featured distinguished and subtle vocal acting freighted with remorse, disappointment and pathos, all delivered in Sherratt’s characteristic rich-chocolaty tone. But it was the interpretation of Robin Ticciati and the playing of the LPO that made the evening so distinguished. This was the music of tectonic plates moving and upwellings of molten lava, then delicately shimmering melismas, and the burnished gleaming crimson of the prelude to Act 3. Ticciati is wonderful to watch, almost dancing on the podium as he expressively and elegantly shapes the music, an interpretation reminiscent of Carlos Kleiber’s for its quicksilver qualities to shift from weight to transparency - quite magical. Whether he can achieve such effects in the unsympathetic space of the RAH remains to be seen, but the potential for a wonderful performance is in the offing.

[Prommer]

Great review. I too was impressed by Ticciati - first full Wagner opera he has conducted! Roll on the concert on Tuesday.