return to this month

Songs from the Shows
during a 3-course dinner, well known songs from the shows will be presented by artists from English Studio Opera. The evening will end with an opportunity for everyone to join in singing some songs from
favourite musicals including The Sound of Music, Oliver, Oklahoma, South Pacific, Cats, Les Misérables, The King and I, Cabaret and Phantom of the Opera.

Study Day on Sunday 13 May 11am to 5pm
led by members of the Glyndebourne production team and singers.

Pre-performance talks in the Ebert Room:
3.55 pm on 3 and 10 June

Leoš Janáček     The Cunning Little Vixen
A new production for the 2012 Festival, this is perhaps the only opera to be inspired by a newspaper cartoon strip. Every morning, Janáček would catch up with the exploits of the mischievous vixen Bystrouška. Becoming a dedicated follower of her adventures, he responded with an outpouring of music evoking the wooded rolling hills of the composer’s homeland of Moravia, and rich in both humour and humanity. The opera is directed by Melly Still and conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. Sung in Czech with English supertitles.

Pre-performance talk in the Ebert Room: 3.55 pm on 24 June

Gioachino Rossini     La Cenerentola
A revival of the 2005 Festival production retelling the story of Cinderella. When this production, directed by Peter Hall, was first seen in 2005, Opera magazine credited it as ‘thoughtful, fresh and full of insight’. The opera is conducted by James Gaffigan and sung in Italian with English supertitles.

Queen's Diamond Jubilee concert
music to include Mozart's Coronation Mass, Handel's Coronation Anthems, Parry's I was glad when they said unto me, Walton's overture Orb & Sceptre, and more.

Summer concert
a celebration in music for The Queen's Diamond Jubilee

Composition project
based on Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen
Led by composer Julian Philips, a series of new compositions inspired by Janáček's opera have been composed by A Level students from the East Sussex Academy of Music in Lewes and Bishop Thomas Grant School in London. Glyndebourne singers and musicians from the London Philharmonic Orchestra will be performing thre new works.

Pre-performance talks in the Ebert Room:
3.55 pm on 17 June and 22 July

Giacomo Puccini     La bohème
A revival of the 2000 Tour production directed by David McVicar.  Using Henri Murger’s book about bohemian life in Paris as a source, Puccini's librettists fashioned a perceptive and touching drama. Writers and painters, permanently in debt, live in squalid shared accommodation, falling tumultuously in and out of love. The true-to-life characters make La bohème as relevant now as it was when it was first performed in 1896. The opera is sung in Italian with English supertitles and conducted by Kirill Karabits.

Midsummer Music

Pre-performance talks in the Ebert Room:
3.55 pm on 8, 15, 29 July

W A Mozart     Le nozze di Figaro
A new production for the 2012 Festival, sung in Italian with English supertitles. Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro has particular resonance as a new production – in 1934 it was the first opera to be performed at Glyndebourne, and it was also the opening production of the newly built opera house in 1994. The story of servants outwitting their master had immediate appeal to Mozart, who responded with music that is unrivalled in beauty and characterisation. The opera is conducted by Robin Ticciati and newly directed by Michael Grandage.

Summer concert

Mini Glyndebourne
Let me wander not unseen from Handel's L'Allegro ed il Penseroso, plus solo works.

Australian Sunshine Coast Oriana Choir
an attractive, varied programme of choral works by a very fine mixed voice choir, which comes to Rottingdean from singing in St Paul's Cathedral and St Martin-in-the-Fields on previous evenings, and continues the next day to the Llangollen International Eisteddfod.

Summer Singing Day

Pre-performance talks in the Ebert Room:
3.55 pm on 5, 12, 26 August

Henry Purcell     The Fairy Queen
A revival of the 2009 Festival production, sung in English. When The Fairy Queen was first produced at London's Dorset Gardens Theatre in 1692, it featured stage effects that nearly bankrupted the theatre. There were elaborate costumes, swans gliding over lakes, grottoes, woods and 12-foot high fountains. At Glyndebourne The Observer said of the 2009 production that ‘it is hard to imagine a more brilliantly creative approach to the work’. The opera is conducted by Laurence Cummings and directed by Jonathan Kent.

Elgar      The Apostles

Study Day on Sunday 4 August, 10.30 am to 1.30 pm
led by members of the Glyndebourne production team and singers

A Family Workshop for 8-12 year-olds and their families will be run by Glyndebourne's education team at 4.30 pm on 13 August

Pre-performance talk in the Ebert Room: 3.55 pm on 19 August

Julian Philips     The Yellow Sofa
a tale of sex, a city and the seductive power of furniture with a libretto by Edward Kemp, The Yellow Sofa was composed during Julian Philips' tenure as Glyndebourne's first Composer in Residence. The production is directed by Frederick Wake-Walker and conducted by Gareth Hancock.

Come and join an afternoon choral workshop on
John Rutter's Feel the Spirit
all singers welcome

It's a work held in special affection by the Brighton Orpheus Choir which gave the 2nd British performance in 2002.

Autumn concert

Christmas concert

organisers may find it useful to review the event pattern for the whole year 2011

you can also see the archive of events
in 2010,  2009,  2008,  2007,  2006 or 2005

(NB: these archives are long files - 500+ kb each)