Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[french frank]

I was joking! But my wife says she heard that GM was 'on' at Glastonbury.....not the first time they've had 'classical' music on there, I remember a last act of Valkyrie that was televised one year......and in any case Rutland Boughton started the whole thing anyway!

Groovy Charles Hazlewood performed there a few years back with one of his bands. I think it's just to demonstrate that classical music is 'reaching out' to new young audiences, is 'welcoming' and not at all elitist. I don't think it convinces/converts anyone.

[Roger Webb]

Groovy Charles Hazlewood performed there a few years back with one of his bands. I think it's just to demonstrate that classical music is 'reaching out' to new young audiences, is 'welcoming' and not at all elitist. I don't think it convinces/converts anyone.

Yes Hazlewood was everywhere at one time, incl. some ok documentaries on TV. I no longer had my CD shop when the Valkyrie was on at Glastonbury (2004), but I'm told that there was a uptick in interest after it....and from unlikely directions.

I've been told that the huge interest in opera engendered by the football/three tenors thing in 1990 wouldn't last, and those thus attracted would only have a passing interest. This was maybe true for, perhaps, a majority of them, but I gained a lot of new customers who were willing to learn, not afraid of their ignorance, and became 'regulars' and some of them friends. One of my favourites, a postman, started taking his holidays to coincide with Glyndebourne, and he and his wife would live on a campsite for two weeks every year, their evening clothes hanging in the tent ready for each performance. All their holiday money went on tickets...and on CDs to study beforehand. He told me his co-workers spent as much as he just to lie on a beach in Spain - they thought him nuts doing what he did!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes Hazlewood was everywhere at one time, incl. some ok documentaries on TV. I no longer had my CD shop when the Valkyrie was on at Glastonbury (2004), but I'm told that there was a uptick in interest after it....and from unlikely directions.

I've been told that the huge interest in opera engendered by the football/three tenors thing in 1990 wouldn't last, and those thus attracted would only have a passing interest. This was maybe true for, perhaps, a majority of them, but I gained a lot of new customers who were willing to learn, not afraid of their ignorance, and became 'regulars' and some of them friends. One of my favourites, a postman, started taking his holidays to coincide with Glyndebourne, and he and his wife would live on a campsite for two weeks every year, their evening clothes hanging in the tent ready for each performance. All their holiday money went on tickets...and on CDs to study beforehand. He told me his co-workers spent as much as he just to lie on a beach in Spain - they thought him nuts doing what he did!

Great story . Good for him even though for me the dinner jacket , champagne and chit -chat social element of Glyndebourne both delights and appalls me.

[Roger Webb]

Great story . Good for him even though for me the dinner jacket , champagne and chit -chat social element of Glyndebourne both delights and appalls me.

I know the worst criticism that can be levelled against Glyndebourne, and other such artistic events that also become social calender occasions, but amongst the corporate hangers-on and socialites who have little or no interest in opera, are the genuine lovers of the art who are willing to play the dressing up game...even take an interval drink (it's not obligatory for it to be champagne), and in my experience the chit-chat is about opera....or perhaps I've just been lucky!

BTW I'm just as happy in 'The Gods' at WNO, ENO, or queuing for returns at Bastille or Vienna Staatsoper....for me opera is opera, in a dinner suit or tee shirt.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I know the worst criticism that can be levelled against Glyndebourne, and other such artistic events that also become social calender occasions, but amongst the corporate hangers-on and socialites who have little or no interest in opera, are the genuine lovers of the art who are willing to play the dressing up game...even take an interval drink (it's not obligatory for it to be champagne), and in my experience the chit-chat is about opera....or perhaps I've just been lucky!

BTW I'm just as happy in 'The Gods' at WNO, ENO, or queuing for returns at Bastille or Vienna Staatsoper....for me opera is opera, in a dinner suit or tee shirt.

Yes of course Opera is Opera and one mustn’t fall into the “elitist “ cliché view of it. Haven’t been to Glyndebourne for forty years. I have quite a few personal connections with the place partly because my family had a house in Lewes and occasionally opera goers would stay there. My problem was - wearing a dinner jacket , the dry acoustic and hot atmosphere , all the posing , and the fact the audience were palpably sozzled after the interval. It reeked upper middle class privilege but as I shared in all that feeling guilty about it is rather hypocritical - pathetic really . Funnily enough I feel less “guilty “ about sitting in the stalls at Covent Garden even though that’s subsidised by taxpayers and Glyndebourne isn’t it. Good luck to them but these days it’s not for me nor is country house opera generally .

[Roger Webb]

................... I have quite a few personal connections with the place partly because my family had a house in Lewes and occasionally opera goers would stay there .

I was born in Ditchling but we moved to Lewes when I was about 5. We too had connections with opera in that our neighbour was the box office manager for Glyndebourne, so tickets where often forthcoming! My mother was a great opera aficionado, so I was brought up with it.

I go to Lewes occasionally, in fact I'm going at the end of the year, and stay in a house high on Mount Caburn that hosts opera staff from Glyndebourne for a lot of the year.

I haven't been to Glyndebourne for ages either, but the dinner suit thing wouldn't stop me....I've got one that can be used in an emergency!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I was born in Ditchling but we moved to Lewes when I was about 5. We too had connections with opera in that our neighbour was the box office manager for Glyndebourne, so tickets where often forthcoming! My mother was a great opera aficionado, so I was brought up with it.

I go to Lewes occasionally, in fact I'm going at the end of the year, and stay in a house high on Mount Caburn that hosts opera staff from Glyndebourne for a lot of the year.

I haven't been to Glyndebourne for ages either, but the dinner suit thing wouldn't stop me....I've got one that can be used in an emergency!

Apologies for the thread diversion but the thing about living near Glyndebourne was it was quite easy to get on the day returns . I saw some very good performances over the years - but I much preferred the informality of the touring opera performances and it is a scandal that the company can no longer afford to tour as much as in the past.

[Roger Webb]

Apologies for the thread diversion but the thing about living near Glyndebourne was it was quite easy to get on the day returns . I saw some very good performances over the years - but I much preferred the informality of the touring opera performances and it is a scandal that the company can no longer afford to tour as much as in the past.

I agree, when I moved to the West Country I used to see Glyndebourne Touring regularly, and saw some great performances....one of my staff in my CD shop was in the chorus at Glyndebourne and with the touring company...I think he's now settled in Lewes.

Anyway, looking forward to Skellers for the rest of the week on EC...he actually read out my choice on the Playlist this morning! Don't worry, I'll give it up next week.....I do it as a bet with a friend!

[oddoneout]

Yes of course Opera is Opera and one mustn’t fall into the “elitist “ cliché view of it. Haven’t been to Glyndebourne for forty years. I have quite a few personal connections with the place partly because my family had a house in Lewes and occasionally opera goers would stay there. My problem was - wearing a dinner jacket , the dry acoustic and hot atmosphere , all the posing , and the fact the audience were palpably sozzled after the interval. It reeked upper middle class privilege but as I shared in all that feeling guilty about it is rather hypocritical - pathetic really . Funnily enough I feel less “guilty “ about sitting in the stalls at Covent Garden even though that’s subsidised by taxpayers and Glyndebourne isn’t it. Good luck to them but these days it’s not for me nor is country house opera generally .

Yet when people don fancy dress, observe strange rituals and consume drink(among other things) at "popular" music events, no-one bats an eyelid about it.

[Roger Webb]

..................... . Funnily enough I feel less “guilty “ about sitting in the stalls at Covent Garden even though that’s subsidised by taxpayers.......... .

No need to feel 'guilty' about your stall seat being subsidised by taxpayers, it's not; you and those taxpayers are subsidising those like me who often sat in the upper circle!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yet when people don fancy dress, observe strange rituals and consume drink(among other things) at "popular" music events, no-one bats an eyelid about it.

True.
To be honest I dislike that even more.

[Ein Heldenleben]

No need to feel 'guilty' about your stall seat being subsidised by taxpayers, it's not; you and those taxpayers are subsidising those like me who often sat in the upper circle!

Well in my youth I sat there as well. I don’t resent a single penny of the tax I pay spent on the Arts.

[Roger Webb]

Well in my youth I sat there as well. I don’t resent a single penny of the tax I pay spent on the Arts.

Nor do I! The question is do the general public think like that? I think they used to.

[Barbirollians]

And now we go over to the Pyramid Stage for a performance of the Immortal Hour …

[Roger Webb]

And now we go over to the Pyramid Stage fora performance of the Immortal Hour …

.........Or Aida...............................!