A Very English Afternoon
Brimming with joy and delight
Hello again!
I missed you whilst I was away!
The last few weeks were busy with travel, and most importantly filled to the brim with family and love and music and joyfulness. I was soaking up everything as much as I could, and so writing was deferred. We were in California (again) for a long weekend to participate in a wonderful family celebration. Of that, I hope to share more later.
Afterwards, we returned to the Island for a day, did laundry, repacked, and left the next morning to attend the magic that is Glyndebourne. Or as their tag line says: “No ordinary opera.”
I am not an opera buff or an expert by any means, however I have had the absolute privilege of attending many operas in various places during my life. My first (I think) was at age 11 or 12 attending the Santa Fe Opera, which is an open-air amphitheatre in the state of New Mexico. We had family friends with season tickets, and as a treat for my birthday, they sent me and another young girl to the opera. It was dramatic, as most opera is, and although I couldn’t really follow the story, I do remember there was some man going to hell on stage which was taking a very long time to happen.
At the same time as loud bangs and lights created the thunder and lightening of hell on stage, the real thing was happening just outside the theatre, with much louder bangs and claps and sizzles from the high desert thunderstorm. With it’s open air sides, we could experience both the stage and the real-life storms very clearly: jagged lightening bolts were flashing, the thunderous booms were deafening, and the wind was roaring its own powerful drama through the theatre. I was terrified of thunderstorms (still am), and wasn’t sure if perhaps we were ALL on our way to hell. I remember absolute awe at what had happened that night, and was captivated by the experience of opera from that evening on.
Years later I saw a movie called Fitzcarraldo, the story of an Irishman who is determined to build an opera house in the middle of the Amazon jungle. (He also wanted to extract rubber and make a small fortune.) The movie, and a related movie about the making of Fitzcarrraldo, portrayed a fantastical epic journey, but my take-away was that opera is best seen and heard outside, reinforcing my original experience. The outside seemed to be where the hugeness of the music and the grand storytelling of opera is at the appropriate scale.
Fast forward after many other operas in San Francisco, a few years ago Pete and I attended the Volksoper (The People’s Opera) in Vienna one night on a whim, enjoying the ‘for everyone’ relaxed atmosphere encouraged at this opera house. This was Pete’s first opera and thankfully he enjoyed it. So at the beginning of this year, when one of our friends asked if we’d be interested in going to Glyndebourne during the summer season, I said yes without hesitation.
Glyndebourne is one of the most civilised Opera experiences one can imagine. Throughout the whole afternoon and evening, I felt properly English. And to my delight, it combines being both outside and inside.
First of all the setting: The Opera house is located on the grounds of a stately home with acres of gardens to stroll around and enjoy. There are picnic tables scattered around the gardens, in marquees and in the lobbies of the opera house which you can reserve. You are encouraged to bring your own picnic, order one to pick up when you arrive, or you can eat at one of the restaurants.
There is a champagne stall, a changing room if you don’t fancy travelling in your evening attire, art galleries, sculpture gardens, and much more. All the facilities are set up to make your life as easy and enjoyable as possible, with staff available to wheel your picnic basket to your table, to lend you an umbrella, to take your photos (see below), and to act almost as your personal opera attendant.
The schedule: The grounds open at 2; the performance starts at 4 and ends by 8:30. For our performance we had one early break of 20 minutes to freshen up and visit the gift shop, and a second 90 minute interval to enjoy our picnic dinner in a leisurely fashion. Following the performance the grounds and shops and restaurants are open for another 90 minutes. There is no sense of ever needing to hurry.
We arrived fashionably late (around 3pm) and were guided to our picnic table inside one of the tents, since it was properly raining. Many of the tables were already full of jolly patrons, smartly dressed, and quaffing their first bottle of bubbly or perhaps a cocktail. We cracked open our own first bottle of lovely English sparkling and nibbled on various olives, nuts and crackers.
Almost all the men were in black tie/dinner jackets, and all the women were in lovely gowns and other slightly-arty but always classy attire. We were amongst the youngest in our tent. Our crowd were mainly older couples in groups of four or six who clearly had been coming for years. You know how you can see people relax? This was happening all around us, and it was contagious.
We didn’t have much time to wander around the grounds before the opera started, plus it was raining, so we saved that for the second interval after our hearty picnic dinner. And of course more bubbly!
The opera, Carmen, was incredibly well staged with talented singers and innovative choreography. The opera house itself is quite new; the inside is built with warm woods; the acoustics and seating were lovely.
Needless to say, we have already planned our ‘improvements’ for next year: a silver candelabra with tapers for our table, actual glasses rather than safe plastic flutes, arrive closer to 2 pm to have more time to stroll the gardens, and most importantly, be sure to buy a drink at the bar in the lobby so we can spend more time watching all the pretty people!
Pete teased me afterwards that I loved the whole event because I liked being with all the posh people. I can’t deny that I enjoyed being surrounded by so many lovelies. It is not my usual crowd, and I love to watch people. But it was more than that.
Attending Glyndebourne is a celebration of arts and artistic excellence. For me, anyway, my joy came from being surrounded by beautiful gardens, with the added delight from the brilliant storytelling, classic music, fantastic voices and staging that constitutes opera. All the people attending have made an effort to celebrate this art, and dedicate a day of their time in support of art and beauty. There is abundant joy and delight for all; who doesn’t want a little more of that now and again in their life? 🥂
Thanks everyone for reading through this slightly longer post.
Have you ever been to opera? What do you think about it? Have you seen it outside or inside? People seem to love or hate opera, so I get it if you don’t want to spend your day like I did. Looking forward to hearing your experiences!
Meantime, I hope you all are enjoying these last few weeks of summer. It’s back and forth weather-wise here on the Island: one day sunny, one day cloudy with rain. Some of you I know are greeting spring; you probably have the same weather! Oh goodness, listen to me sounding all British, talking about the weather….!
See you next week,
xoxo Sabrina
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Glyndebourne sounds like a lovely experience. My own history with opera is perhaps best described as fraught; when I was a wee lad, my parents had season tickets to the San Francisco Opera, and they would drag me kicking and screaming to one performance a year - always, in my memory, of Carmen, though I don’t suppose that can actually be true. I hated it: getting dressed up, being forced to sit still in an uncomfortable chair for hours on end while watching a bunch of very large people in ridiculous costumes maneuver clumsily about the stage while shrieking at each other in a language I didn’t understand (this was long before supertitles)….
But, as someone with arty pretensions, I always felt my aversion to opera as a character defect, and so when I had the opportunity a few years ago to audit a course at Williams College on the history of opera I leapt at the chance. And when I moved back to San Francisco in 2021 my buddy Hans Baldauf and I decided to start attending the opera together. We tend toward the Italian classics and Mozart - no Wagner, please - and while I can’t say I’ve become a devotee yet, I’m still working on it.
Wonderful piece Sabrina! As many others commented, it was so atmospheric, I felt I was there with you in such an enticing way! Sign me up for opera at Glyndebourne and also in New Mexico! I have virtually no experience with opera but absolutely love symphonies and outdoor venues for music in general so I think that I would be in heaven! So pleased you and Pete have plans to go again next year with “new and improved” additions!