Hippolyte et Aricie at Glyndebourne

07/07/13

Rameau was one of the major opera composers of the 18th century and probably the only French baroque composer who surpassed Jean-Baptiste Lully, his great 17th century forebear. Already 49 when he composed it, Rameau's first attempt at opera Hippolyte et Aricie was to to be the first of over 30 stage works and although he was already a highly successful and accomplished composer, this spate of operas represents a total shift in direction and a late flourishing in which he expanded and magnified his talents beyond anything that one might have expected from what he had produced before.

Though it's an astonishingly brilliant first attempt, and quite unlike what any of his contemporaries were doing, Hippolyte et Aricie is musically not quite my favourite of Rameau's stageworks (ardent Ramiste though I am) as his harmonic and melodic writing isn't as dazzlingly wide ranging or unbeholden as it later would be. The score is however littered with truly magnificent moments, and Acts IV and V are wholly inspired. Despite its complexity, dramatically the work is very strong and can be presented as a drama of shattering significance. Since the British public/critics have been mysteriously slow to catch on to Rameau's genius, Glyndebourne must be roundly congratulated for mounting this work, especially under William Christie, one of the greatest Rameau interpreters of our age.

Jonathan Kent's production is mercifully far more entertaining than his dull (yet mysteriously beloved by many critics) Fairy Queen that he previously directed for Glyndebourne. The Prologue is staged inside an open fridge: the virginal Diana's chilly realm, her minions crowding around huge consumer products. Cupid, god of erotic passion and therefore her nemesis, hatches from a huge egg and is revealed to be a fiery chicken who then tries to convince Diana's followers to follow his rule. The ballet that ensues is staged with huge broccoli trees, cauliflower clouds, and an orange slice sun. In Act I, Diana's followers celebrate her peaceful nature in the chilled confines of an abattoir whilst stringing up bleeding stags - the dark background to the shiny appearance of the Prologue. Hell is the hot reverse side of the fridge, complete with flies and spiders. The mythical characters are all presented in stylised 18th century garb, whereas the mortals wear modern dress and the Act III family drama is in a normal scale Ikea bedecked house.

Despite the extraordinary beauty and variety of the music, Rameau's operas are often considered difficult to stage because of the extensive dance sequences, and the preponderance of classical references which would have been totally familiar with 18th century audiences can seem a forbidding obstacle for many modern audience members (myself included) who simply aren't familiar with the ins and outs of the mythology and so the characters don't always resonate with the same force, or spark the same associations as they originally would have. This production is an attempt to match the jubilant extravagance that Rameau was aiming at in his own time, and in a way it succeeds in being constantly surprising, and usually engaging. But beyond being basically internally coherent and simply elucidating the classical references (cool/hot, frigid/randy etc.) I think the piece is far more subtle psychologically than it is being presented here.

The actions of the gods are played for laughs, whereas the mortals are taken more seriously, but I'm not sure that such a simple division really gets to the heart of the matter of what is being explored here by composer and librettist. The point of some scenes doesn't seem forcefully enough presented either - as an example the jubilation of the public at the return of Theseus is clearly meant to make the personal humilations of Phaedra's failed seduction and Theseus's realisations even more humiliating and painful in that they both have to bear this hidden pain whilst appearing before an adoring public. Here the clowning of the cartoonish choreography and sailor costumes becomes the focus and detracts from the purpose of the scene.



Most successful is the final Act, here staged in a morgue (an annex of Diana's domain) where Aricie and Hippolyte are reunited/resurrected by Diana and then are finally married in the presence of the goddess. Kent sees this scene as a total victory for Diana, and taking his cue from the music, the ceremony is a joyless, cold affair, in the presence of the ruined and blindfolded Theseus. Phaedra's body is brought out later and she is revived only to be tortured by endless visions of thwarted love (the ballet from Act 1, cleverly and movingly brought back here, the dancers continually thwarted in their romantic embraces). Cupid's limp corpse descends - he has been hanged - while Diana reigns there can be no erotic love for the couple. It's a very dark vision for what is nominally a happy ending, but it's very effective and makes sense in the light of the terrible fates of Theseus and Phaedra.

Musically this production isn't quite as luxurious as William Christie's glorious recording with Les Arts Florissants (which is an embarrassment of riches) - the small Glyndebourne chorus often simply not sounding full enough, and the orchestral sound sometimes seemed a little thin presumably so as not to cover the small voices that had been cast in many of the roles. Still there is much to admire here, and the orchestra do some ravishing things, Christie always managing to present Rameau's textures in the most surprising and beautiful light. Sarah Connolly is a very moving Phaedra, a superlative actress with a lovely voice, and she simply owns the stage in her two major scenes, the second of which is breathtaking. She is the only character who enters and leaves the stage via the pit - not something I fully understood, but somehow it seemed to fit. Stéphane Degout as Theseus is a vocal powerhouse, his bass-baritone perhaps not quite as nuanced as the other singers, but again compelling as a central figure, and he delivered a gorgeous Act V aria and duet with Francois Lis's Neptune, the drooping flute line a beautiful complement from Christie and his OAE players. Lis doubled as Pluto and Jupiter, singing beautifully but lacking the resonance in the low notes to really do these roles full justice. Christiane Karg's shiny soprano and appealing earnestness made her a charming Aricie, matched vocally by the lovely voiced Ed Lyon as Hippolyte. Unfortunately Lyon was not convincing in creating a character onstage, nor in his interactions with his colleagues. Katherine Watson stepped in to perform Diana in place of an indisposed Stéphanie D'Oustrac, and revealed an attractive lyric timbre, with a surprisingly strong chest register, a very good sign, but it's not yet quite fully integrated with the middle register. Following the suit of the rest of the cast, occasionally vocal nuance and focus on diction lead to interruption of the legato line, but this is a promising voice.

Overall this is a worthwhile production, with enough great music making to make the whole thing worth seeing. Let's hope that this is the first of many more Rameau operas at Glyndebourne!


all photos (c) Bill Cooper/Glyndebourne

Les Indes galantes 2003 Opéra National de Paris DVD: A Question of Camp

Opus Arte

Hébé: Danielle de Niese
Bellone: Joao Fernandes
L'Amoure: Valérie Gabail

Osman: Nicolas Cavallier
Emilie: Anna Maria Panzarella
Valere: Paul Agnew

Huascar: Nathan Berg
Phani: Jael Azzaretti
Don Carlos: Francois Piolini

Tacmas: Richard Croft
Ali: Nathan Berg
Zaire: Gaele le Roi
Fatime: Malin Hartelius

Adario: Nicolas Rivenq
Damon: Christoph Strehl
Don Alvar: Christophe Fel
Zima: Patricia Petibon

Conductor: William Christie
Les Arts Florissants

Director: Andrei Serban
Set and costume designer: Marina Draghici
Choreographer: Blanca Li



After Hippolyte et Aricie, Rameau's second foray into opera Les Indes galantes might come as a shock - the intimacy, incredible drama and newness of the previous opera is eschewed in favour of stock situations and divertissement. But Les Indes galantes is an opéra-ballet rather than a Tragédie en musique, and therefore is a much lighter, frothier affair, with the focus more firmly on ballet than on singing.  This shift of focus and also the shift of tone prevents it from being one of my more favourite Rameau operas though there's plenty to enjoy for those who like this music. (Though I love numbers here and there of all Rameau's operas, my favourites as total entities are largely the five Tragédies en musique.)

It is difficult to be an opera lover and not have at least some taste for the Camp aesthetic. I for my part identify with Susan Sontag's position in her extraordinarily brilliant essay Notes on Camp. As she did, I admit "a sharp conflict in my own sensibility. I am strongly drawn to Camp, and almost as strongly offended by it." There are situations where I like it, and some where I don't; as mentioned in the essay, as a general rule, naïve Camp is usually more satisfying than "camping" aka deliberate Camp. (As an aside, I cannot recommend the essay enough, one of my favourite essays ever. I wish I had written it.)

this sort of thing

Everyone will have their own internal standards and sensibilities on this issue, even if they have not yet been fully considered and verbalised, so mileage will vary on how much each viewer will enjoy this production. For me, Andrei Serban's production crosses the line into camping so far that I find it difficult to enjoy. It's sort of fun moment by moment, but there's a joyless superficiality and denial of the Spirit in pointing out obvious absurdities and avoiding true emotion if Camp can be substituted, which is what this production tends heavily towards. It's also difficult to sustain an audience's interest over a period of music this long if their emotions are not engaged. As a result, for me at least, the whole thing feels prolix and uninvolving. Baroque opera suffers hugely from these sort of productions because broadly, what they offer as drama usually is the endless emotional contortions that surround romantic love and its denial. Rameau can come so close to Camp as it is - the powdered ultra decadence of the Ancien Régime is often invoked in less musically and lyrically inspired passages, where means seem to so far outstrip the ends that it becomes difficult to take it seriously. Camp is just around the corner. For me, the solution to make it viable as a piece of stagecraft is not to turn it into a joke, basically because the joke isn't funny enough. I don't mind directors being what some might call "disrespectful" to a piece if ultimately it deepens our appreciation of the artwork, but an ultra decadent panto without the smut or jokes pretty quickly becomes a bit of an inflated bore rather than a guilty delight.

Act IV

Perversely, part of the problem may be that this production doesn't go far enough. If you're going to do it, make a real meal of it! The bright primary colours, twee costumes and set pieces, and panto acting do make it ultra stylised, artificial and sort of fabulous, but it doesn't evince the overstuffed cavern of delights that it's aiming for because the ideas are a bit literal and could be more flamboyant, subversive and decadent. This approach would be truer to Rameau in a way, because he was the ne plus ultra of these things in his time - but we need to feel this now, with our modern sensibilities, ideas and standards, if it's going to work on that level.

Act IV: Christoph Strehl as Damon and
Patricia Petibon as Zima

The Prologue and Act I Le Turc généreux are the worst offenders for camping design wise, and the the singers completely fail to engage with their characters (either because of the alienating production, or because they've been explicitly told to camp it up). Act II, Les Incas du Perou is stronger visually, and takes itself more seriously, at least for the centrepiece, a stirring mass invocation to the gods followed by a Rameau staple, a lightning and thunder/natural disaster scene. It helps also that the music is more interesting and varied in this act. The resolution though is let down again by poor attention to detail in the acting, and the singers revert to rather uninvolved, static declamation. Act III Les Fleurs we are back to panto, and in Act IV Les Sauvages we get some mildly offensive, but mostly just very bad choreography, which throughout has been of very variable quality.

Paul Agnew in Act I

The cast is entirely serviceable - all sing with immaculate intonation and with meticulous attention to proper Ramistian style. But Christie seems to favour very very light voices in this repertoire, and I wish he would work with slightly bigger voices with more colouristic options. In studio recordings they can sound beautiful, but already on DVD you can hear that they are struggling to fill the huge modern day opera houses that are staging these works. Not one singer has a strong low register here, particularly an issue for the women as so much of Rameau's writing sits relatively low. The singers of that era must have had approximately the same distribution of vocal weights as today, and many parts are not very florid, so I somehow doubt that Rameau would only have utilised soubrettes and light tenors and spiel-baritones.

Richard Croft stands out as the disguised prince Tacmas in Act III, with some gorgeous lyrical singing in the quartet, and a quite lovely falsetto before he goes into his joke female voice. Patricia Petibon also produces some very nice sounds as Zima in Act IV, though is completely over the top acting wise. A very young Danielle de Niese already shows huge promise at 24 as Hébé in the Prologue, easily singing as well as her respected co-stars - you realise that it's not just her stage presence that is dazzling, but that the voice has real star quality, particularly the upper register which already is fuller and more exciting than any of the other female principles. The more I hear of her live, the more impressed I am - OK, she's not one of the Great Voices, but it's still a very decent voice, she is a charming actress, can sing with sensitivity to the text, is clearly engaged on stage, and as a whole package is way, way above what we normally get in soubrette roles at the moment on the big stages.


William Christie as ever is exemplary in this repertoire, and Les Arts Florissants play with their usual panache.

Doesn't it look like it should be great from these costumes? But by the end my expression mirrored Danielle's here. (This is a screen shot from the prologue)

DVD Review: Les Boréades 2003 Opus Arte

Alphise: Barbara Bonney
Abaris: Paul Agnew
Calisis: Toby Spence
Borilée: Stéphane Degout
Borée: Laurent Naouri
Adamas, Apollon: Nicolas Rivenq
Sémire: Anna-Maria Panzarella
Une nymphe: Jael Azzaretti

Opéra National de Paris
Les Arts Florissents

Conductor: William Christie
Choreography: Édouard Lock (feat. La La La Human Steps)
Director: Robert Carsen
Sets and Costume Design: Michael Levine


Written when the composer was 80, Les Boréades is Rameau's final opera. Even at this age Rameau was exploring, and though it's not the most compelling of his operas, there is still much to admire. The exceptionally inventive, unusual and beautiful ballet music in Acts 3, 4 and 5 form the core of the work's musical appeal, but there are lovely moments for the solo voices and choir too, one particular highlight being the final brief duet for the lovers.

This opera does not have the richest libretto, and Robert Carsen has done a very admirable job in fleshing it out, creating a coherent and simple concept that binds the piece together, is visually strong, and is entirely respectful to the piece - absolutely no ironic quotations marks here. Carsen depicts a dour northern civilisation which the queen Alphise is from, and from which also come the two sons of Borée (Les Boréades), one of whom she is meant to choose as a suitor. They are affected, artificial, controlled and authoritarian. But her true love Abaris comes from a much warmer culture which is subjugated by the colder, officious civilisation. Overprinted on this is the play of seasons, and the very large dance element of this opera. It seems to be quite rare that dance sequences are well served in operas, at least in the UK, so it's a pleasure to see such accomplished dancers and interesting choreography. In fact, a large part of the character of the northern civilisation is communicated through the skittish, efficient, and alarmingly fast dances that this culture favours.

Barbara Bonney is the premier youthful lyric soprano of her generation, but has made a career primarily out of the German repertoire and she does not seem entirely in her element here. It's not just the language though - the role of Alphise requires dramatic declamation and weighty, angular coloratura which seem to really challenge her (disconcerting for us admirers that are used to everything seeming effortless for this singer). That said, she still does well as she is a superb actress and a captivating stage presence, and the basic timbre of the voice itself is quite lovely of course. Dramatically she's the complete opposite of Paul Agnew who plays her lover Abaris with superb delicacy and beauty of voice - with Agnew the acting and drama is all internal, and he seems surprised when he finds himself interacting with other people. Bonney is radiantly outward focused, reacting to and truly interacting with everyone and everything, especially touching and real in the final act when it is revealed that she is allowed to marry her lover.

The rest of the cast is good. Laurent Naouri is a bit hyperactive and small voiced to be really scary as Borée though he sings idiomatically and well. Toby Spence makes a horribly affected prince and a nicely sung one too. Stéphane Degout as his brother Borilée is a less accomplished singer and doesn't register so clearly as a character. Nicolas Rivenq makes a good Apollon and Adamas.

One can only be thankful for living in an age where William Christie conducts Rameau with Les Arts Florissents. All I can say is that this is music making of the first order* - exciting, characterful, sensitive, intelligent, beautiful. Truly beyond praise.

One really irritating aspect of this DVD is the terrible English subtitles - all theeing and thouing, often with very awkward word order. This makes them difficult to follow and while watching I spent far too much time trying to translate them into real English.

This video shows some of my favourite dance music in the opera - the first piece is the gorgeous Entree from Act IV, and then that charming and wonderful Gavotte for flute and bassoon, and then the final number with its rhythmic dislocations. You see also quite how brilliant the playing is in this production.

*At the moment we are actually lucky enough to have another Rameau conductor of the very highest level: Marc Minkowski

DVD review: Castor et Pollux DVD 2008 Opus Arte

Telaire: Anna Maria Panzarella
Phebe: Véronique Gens
Cleone: Judith van Ranroij
Castor: Finnur Bjarnason
Pollux: Henk Neven
Jupiter: Nicolas Teste
High Priest: Thomas Oliemans
Mercury: Anders J Dahlin

Les Talens Lyriques
Chorus of de Nederlands Opera

Conductor: Christophe Rousset
Director: Pierre Audi
Set and Costume Designer: Patrick Kinmouth
Lighting: Jean Kalman
Choreographer: Amir Hossenpour


Castor et Pollux is one of my favourite Rameau operas - the fascinating story of brotherly love and the exciting beauty of the music make it an unusual and special piece. Unfortunately this production completely misses the mark and is in no way recommendable.

This opera is about tortured emotions, and the conflict between the desire for love and doing the right thing. Unfortunately director Pierre Audi and designer Patrick Kinmouth conspire to strip all characters of any individuality or personality to the extent where it's hard to understand what is going on or what the motivation for the character's actions are. The aesthetic is some sort of sci-fi future where both men and women are garbed almost identically in badly cut dresses, everyone has identical braided hair, and most people wear eyeliner, eyeshadow and lipgloss. Status and personality are not expressed through visual appearance. Sets look equally tacky and contrived and as so often with sci-fi are derived from a previous era of design but without its logic or coherence (in this case very vaguely Bauhaus). The only props are white cubes, and the only changes of scene are effected through lighting, usually with characters not even leaving the stage. The chorus sings from offstage throughout, and dancers act out the words.

The result is ugly, emotionally barren, dramatically turgid, confused and boring.

Musically things fare slightly better. All of the cast sing perfectly well, though there's nothing to get truly excited about here. Véronique Gens is the exception and manages to imbue her music with expression, but it's difficult to really see her as a big adversary when she's so placid like the rest of them, and dressed identically. The orchestra make a decent sound, though there's a lack of contrast in colour and timbre - Rameau's operas thrive on their exciting changes between soughing laments, energetic bombast and edgy virtuosity. Probably the orchestra is just too large to give the music the precision it needs (though a better conductor at the helm would surely help.)

Rameau was constantly revising his operas, and this performances uses the 1754 version rather than the original 1737 version. The original is a much more interesting piece, and the update cuts many of the most beautiful and original passages of the first version. Sadly this is a tendency with Rameau's revisions - to tone things down to please an ever less adventurous public.

Rameau is still a cause, and needs passionate advocacy to cement his place in the repertoire - outside of France his genius is still mostly appreciated by connoisseurs and far from widely accepted. Sadly this DVD is so boring and misguided that it will win him few new fans. Get the William Christie CD with Les Arts Florissants instead.

Glyndebourne's 2013 Season in full (with casts)

Ariadne auf Naxos
Strauss


A new production for the 2013 Festival
Sung in German with English supertitles

Conductor .................................Vladimir Jurowski
Director.....................................Katharina Thoma
Set Designer..............................Julia Müer
Costume Designer......................Irina Bartels
Lighting Designer .......................Olaf Winter
Movement Director ................... Lucy Burge

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Music Master............................Thomas Allen
Ariadne.....................................Soile Isokoski
Composer..................................Kate Lindsey
Zerbinetta.................................Teodora Gheorghiu
Harlequin..................................Dmitry Vargin
Scaramuccio..............................James Kryshak
Truffaldino................................Torben Jürgens
Brighella ...................................Andrew Stenson
Bacchus ....................................Sergey Skorokhodov
Dancing Master........................Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
                                                 Guy de Mey (June 13, 20 & 23)
Naiad........................................Ana Maria Labin
Dryad........................................Elodie Méchain
Echo .........................................Gabriela Iştoc


Falstaff
Verdi


A revival of the 2009 Festival production.
Sung in Italian with English supertitles

Conductor .................................Mark Elder
Director.....................................Richard Jones
Revival Director ........................Sarah Fahie
Designer....................................Ultz
Lighting Designer ......................Mimi Jordan Sherin

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
The Glyndebourne Chorus

cast
Falstaff ..................................... Laurent Naouri
Alice Ford .................................Ailyn Perez
Ford..........................................Roman Burdenko
Meg Page .................................Lucia Cirillo
Mistress Quickly .......................Susanne Resmark
Nannetta ...................................Elena Tsallagova
Fenton.......................................Antonio Poli
Dr Cajus....................................Graham Clark
Bardolfo ....................................Colin Judson
Pistola .......................................Paolo Battaglia



Le Nozze di Figaro
Mozart


A revival of the 2012 Festival production
Co-production with Houston Grand Opera
and the Metropolitan Opera
Sung in Italian with English supertitles

Conductor................................... Jérémie Rohrer
Director....................................... Michael Grandage
Revival Director........................... Ian Rutherford
Designer...................................... Christopher Oram
Lighting Designer .........................Paule Constable
Movement Director .....................Ben Wright

London Philharmonic Orchestra
The Glyndebourne Chorus

cast includes
Figaro.......................................... Adam Plachetka
Susanna....................................... Laura Tatulescu
Countess..................................... Amanda Majeski
Count.......................................... Joshua Hopkins
Bartolo........................................ Luciano Di Pasquale
Marcellina .................................. Anne Mason
Cherubino................................... Lydia Teuscher
Don Basilio ................................. Timothy Robinson
Antonio....................................... Nicholas Folwell
Don Curzio.................................. Alasdair Elliott



Hippolyte et Aricie
Rameau


A new production for the 2013 Festival
Sung in French with English supertitles

Conductor................................... William Christie
Director....................................... Jonathan Kent
Designer...................................... Paul Brown
Lighting Designer....................... Mark Henderson
Choreographer............................ Ashley Page

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
The Glyndebourne Chorus

cast includes
Hippolyte..................................... Ed Lyon
Aricie .......................................... Christiane Karg
Phèdre......................................... Sarah Connolly
Thésée......................................... Stéphane Degout
Pluton/Jupiter/Neptune.................. François Lis
Diane .......................................... Stéphanie D’Oustrac
Œnone......................................... Julie Pasturaud
Mercure....................................... Samuel Boden
Arcas/Parque 2 ........................... Aimery Lefèvre
Tisiphone...................................... Loïc Felix
L’ Amour/Une Matelote................Ana Quintans
Grande-Prêtresse/Chasseresse......Emmanuelle de Negri
Suivant de L’Amour/Parque 1.......Mathias Vidal
Parque 3 ......................................Callum Thorpe


Don Pasquale
Donizetti


A revival of the 2011 Tour production
Sung in Italian with English supertitles

Conductor................................... Enrique Mazzola
Director....................................... Mariame Clément
Designer...................................... Julia Hansen
Lighting Designer....................... Bernd Purkrabek

London Philharmonic Orchestra
The Glyndebourne Chorus

cast includes
Don Pasquale.............................. Alessandro Corbelli
Malatesta ................................... Nikolay Borchev
Ernesto........................................ Alek Shrader
Norina......................................... Danielle de Niese


Billy Budd
Britten


A revival of the 2010 Festival production
Sung in English with English supertitles

Conductor................................... Andrew Davis
Director....................................... Michael Grandage
Designer...................................... Christopher Oram
Lighting Designer......................... Paule Constable

London Philharmonic Orchestra
The Glyndebourne Chorus

cast includes
Captain Vere............................... Mark Padmore
Billy Budd ................................... Jacques Imbrailo
Claggart...................................... Brindley Sherratt
Mr Redburn................................. Stephen Gadd
Mr Flint....................................... David Soar
Lieutenant Ratcliffe....................... Christian Van Horn
Red Whiskers.............................. Alasdair Elliott
Donald ........................................ John Moore
Dansker....................................... Jeremy White
The Novice.................................. Peter Gijsbertsen
Squeak ........................................ Colin Judson
Bosun.......................................... Richard Mosley-Evans
Maintop....................................... Dean Power
The Novice’s Friend ................... Duncan Rock






Finally, Glyndebourne return to Strauss after a significant gap, with Ariadne auf Naxos. More lyric voices are always my preference in Strauss, and Ariadne might well be ideal for Isokoski who is not much of a stage animal, but does still possess one of the most glorious Strauss sopranos of the moment. It's not the biggest voice, so Glyndebourne really is the perfect place for her to sing this role. Sergei Skorokhodov I saw at the recent LPO concert and he also does not have the largest voice, but it seems very well produced and ultra steady so it will be interesting to see his Bacchus, famously one of the hardest and least grateful in the tenor repertory. Thomas Allen is always good news, and it'll be interesting to hear the intriguingly named Teodora Gheorghiu - a relation to the more famous one? She sounds great here and here, so I'm quite excited about the musical values of this production. Vladimir Jurowski in the pit too in his final season as artistic director of Glyndebourne - couldn't be bettered as a choice in my opinion (Thielemann or Eschenbach would equal).

Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie is a beauty, astonishingly the composer's first opera. I have to say that it's not my favourite Rameau opera, as it's not quite as harmonically adventurous or ingenious orchestration wise as the later operas, but there are enough moments of searing beauty to call it a Great opera. There's that classic recording with Baker as Phedre but I like the one with William Christie even more - so I'm very pleased that he's been chosen to conduct this time. He had the incomparable Lorraine Hunt as Phedre (hear her here and here), but Glyndebourne have cast Sarah Connolly, who I'm sure will also be magnificent.

Glyndebourne's Don Pasquale is an excellent production, beautifully simple and a delight when it was introduced in the 2011 tour with a decent cast. I was completely surprised and delighted by Danielle de Niese's performance in L'Elisir d'Amor last summer at Glyndebourne, not just a natural actress and charming stage personality, but the voice has come on so much in the past two years or so. So I am very pleased to see that she has been cast as Norina.

I was not all that keen on this years Nozze di Figaro, so may not bother this time, unless one of the cast members starts enthusing me (I haven't heard of any, but will start researching all!).

Billy Budd I missed last time at Glyndebourne and everyone went gaga for it then, so I'm looking forward to that too. Same with Falstaff which didn't get such good reviews, but is such a lovely score that I wouldn't miss an opportunity to see it. Interesting that it's being done with the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment too... unless that is a typo in the programme... Apparently the LPO are doing Figaro. Hmm.

Tour wise things look great too - new production Rape of Lucretia, L'Elisir d'Amor, and for me most excitingly a return of Laurent Pelly's wonderful Hansel and Gretel.