It used to be a treat saved up for the end of the season, when a Christie of Glyndebourne would step before the curtain and announce the next year's operas. Now, like everyone else, Glyndebourne is jumping in quick with its plans, partly, I guess, to raise money for its most expensive project yet - Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as next year's very festive opening gambit.
The good news is that it's going to be conducted by resident powerhouse Vladimir Jurowski, who's already turned in an unforgettable Tristan und Isolde there. The unknown quantities are director David McVicar - when good, great; when bad, horrid - and Gerald Finley, who's already been stretching his paradoxically light bass-baritone too far at times and who takes on the enormous role of philosopher-cobbler Hans Sachs.
On the other hand, the house in the country can't fail to move again with Dvořák's heartbreaking masterpiece Rusalka, staged so evocatively and unusually by Melly Still in her first opera production last season that many of us hoped she'd go on to do a Wagner Ring cycle. The human truth and the magic would surely be equally well served; anyway, there's plenty of time for that. Annabel Arden's direct hit on Donizetti's straightforward L'elisir d'amore is back by popular demand for a third time. Jonathan Kent's Don Giovanni returns before it's even been tested - it's the second new production on the cards this summer - and there's further mileage to be had from his 1950s setting of Britten's chiller The Turn of the Screw.
Those of us who find Kent a little bit of an also-ran among directors will be looking forward more to the wacky Robert Carsen, who will surely bring his customary sense of visual beauty to bear on a new production of Handel's Rinaldo. A bit of a disappointment, then, for those of us who live in hope that Glyndebourne will return to its brief of the rich and rare. The heyday of unusual Strauss seems to be over, but whatever it does, it will do it in style, with bags of the ideal preparation for which it is celebrated. Oh, and this season - I almost forget - begins on a hopefully warm Thursday.
On the other hand, the house in the country can't fail to move again with Dvořák's heartbreaking masterpiece Rusalka, staged so evocatively and unusually by Melly Still in her first opera production last season that many of us hoped she'd go on to do a Wagner Ring cycle. The human truth and the magic would surely be equally well served; anyway, there's plenty of time for that. Annabel Arden's direct hit on Donizetti's straightforward L'elisir d'amore is back by popular demand for a third time. Jonathan Kent's Don Giovanni returns before it's even been tested - it's the second new production on the cards this summer - and there's further mileage to be had from his 1950s setting of Britten's chiller The Turn of the Screw.
Those of us who find Kent a little bit of an also-ran among directors will be looking forward more to the wacky Robert Carsen, who will surely bring his customary sense of visual beauty to bear on a new production of Handel's Rinaldo. A bit of a disappointment, then, for those of us who live in hope that Glyndebourne will return to its brief of the rich and rare. The heyday of unusual Strauss seems to be over, but whatever it does, it will do it in style, with bags of the ideal preparation for which it is celebrated. Oh, and this season - I almost forget - begins on a hopefully warm Thursday.
- Check out what's on at Glyndebourne 2010
- Check out the Glyndebourne Festival Opera website
- Glyndebourne's 2011 season runs from 21 May to 28 August
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