In praise of Glyndebourne: the Sussex Downs haven remains country-house opera’s gold standard

Glyndebourne’s summer season features one show so astonishing that people are almost ready to kill to get tickets, writes Michael Church. Its founder John Christie would be impressed

High notes and hampers: the Sussex Downs estate has been welcoming opera lovers for the last 90 years (Glyndebourne Productions Ltd/James Bellorini)

It’s now high season for country-house opera, and if there’s one dream to which all new contenders to the ranks of this art form aspire, it’s to be “the new Glyndebourne”. Yet the genesis of that exclusive haven on the Sussex Downs was a modest affair, and its development has been a tale with unexpected twists.

Its birth in 1933 was noted in The Daily Telegraph under the faintly surprised headline, “THEATRE BUILT BY OWNER: Mr John Christie’s ‘Private Bayreuth’”. “An interesting venture,” opined Musical Opinion cautiously, “the building of a miniature opera house, combining beauty with the last word in utility, in the heart of the Sussex Downs.”

And the idea caught on. “Whoever cares for the supreme things of opera supremely well done,” said The Times, “and can afford, perhaps at the expense of some other pleasure, to cultivate their taste, will find their answer there.” That was after the curtain had fallen on the first Glyndebourne Figaro.