Glyndebourne Tito picnic with Team London

This unusually picture heavy post is meant as a lure to Glyndebourne for all of you who read this blog but haven’t been there yet. They were gathered over the past three times I’ve been there this year.

As Team London boarded the Glyndebourne bus (you can see it here, posing at Lewes station), the host let us know that we had brought back the sunshine – the weekend had been atrocious. Indeed, the rain returned yesterday in great form – at least in London. Today is all right.

But Monday was a gorgeous day, and as we sat down for cake and prosecco we decided it definitely felt in the low 20s rather than the expected 18C. That’s Summer in England for you, counting your blessings when the thermometer reads 21C 😉 to be fair, the first part of July was scorching. All two weeks of it!

yours truly, Leander and Baroque Bird in the Glyndebourne Rose Garden

Southern Rail, who operates the trains that take one to Lewes, has gone (together with its passengers) through a very bad year. I heard that last year Glyndebourne had to bus its audience from Haywards Heath to the Glyndebourne gardens (that’s about halfway from London), instead of just from Lewes station. Luckily, this year things went well, though I understand Southern Rail service is still iffy. We boarded an earlier (than recommended) train to Brighton and then took a connection from there. I’m telling you this because it is one of the several (cheaper) routes from London into Lewes.

you’ve probably seen the manor before, it dates back to the 1500s (I think)

It was a bit windy, but then again, it’s in the middle of the countryside. We sat on the grass on the other side of the manor, by the auditorium, so we had the chance to hear the singers warm up and even chuckle a bit (they didn’t rehearse any arias per se that I could tell and you know I can tell). We were also right next to the camera crew and the presenter rehearsing for today’s introduction to the livestream. I pretended to be too cool for school and didn’t take any pictures of that 😉

you know I have a bit of a thing for fountains

We overheard the presenter mention something about the “James Bond theme” and we looked at each other like say what? Before the show there was a talk given by the Costume Crew which we did not attend because it’s nicer outside. So whatever the Costume Crew was on about went straight over our heads. I couldn’t imagine something further from Tito than James Bond but who knows…? We were wondering who exactly would James Bond be in Tito? Surely not the strangely Trump-like Publio… So from a random piece of info to a random picture:

cover your eyes, humans!

During the intermission I was a bit too excited to eat, but somehow managed to put away a couple of kebabs (thanks, Leander!) and quite a bit of cake (thanks, Baroque Bird!) by the end 😉 Due to the lovely weather we were able to leave our blankets and things outside (these days you need to check your picnic basket in if you’re not leaving it on the lawn, but most do).

I think I was trying my best to be informative in the post about the performance and didn’t hammer on just how excited I was to hear the overture unfold. In fact it felt a bit unreal but then the curtain rose and everyone tried to manage the reeds and the puddles and before I knew it we got to the act I finale. I don’t know if the marshy bottom layer of the stage is supposed to be Glyndebourne-y or not – because of course the marsh makes sense anyway – but I will reiterate how much I liked the feel.

I have since read Tim Ashley’s Guardian review and I didn’t understand what he meant by “in reimagining the Roman populace as civil servants on the make, however, Guth loses sight of the wider political implications, giving us little sense that lives are at stake beyond the corridors of power in which the drama plays itself out.” I didn’t take it the chorus are meant to be civil servants as much as self righteous mob, which I think does indeed hint at the lives at stake – if the beehive mind has so much say in what goes and what doesn’t, well, then you get Brexit.

But for me Tito has always been about personal relationships and the delicate balances within a close knit group. I wouldn’t usually think too much about the wider implications, though I admit perhaps I should (that would also explain the hitherto rather perplexing motley and meddling chorus in the classic Salzburg Tito).

But let’s get back to the garden, the furthest side of it, where things start to get a bit wilder:

this is the back pond; imagine a quiet canoe ride

In keeping with the mix of wild and nostalgic feel of this production:

remember I mentioned in the Hamlet post I lay in the grass and watched the clouds?