Just a wonderful garden romp!
Just back from our second musical outing at Glyndebourne, today the first night of a one hour concert followed by 70 minutes of an Offenbach one act-er.
Beautiful weather (the promised thunder storms thankfully didn’t deliver, and neither did the overcast and light drizzle from another forecast). Instead unbroken sun and only a slight breeze.
The opening concert started with a short brass piece from Gabrieli, played to us across the lake; followed by Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll; a Modernist piece by Charles Ives (featuring a lone trumpeter from the adjacent sheep field) and a series of Mahler Lieder sung beautifully by Karen Cargill.
Finally, behind us, another brass piece, by Toru Takemitsu.
The ‘dinner’ (high tea?) interval was followed by the Offenbach – ‘In the Market for Love’ (or Onions are forever).
This was, frankly a romp – and wholly made up for the pantos we will be missing – with 3 ‘Ugly Sisters’ – Market stall holders, all played by men, two heavily bearded – a Principal Boy – beautifully sung by Kate Lindsey, slapstick, comic dancing, a comic police force (all policing social distancing and mask wearing) – all it missed was a community song and a transformation scene.
Marrying Offenbach’s with British low comic sensibilities, this is just really fun – and very true to the spirit, if not quite the book, of Offenbach.
The up to date introduction of Covid-19 norms as a satire really worked. The web site is showing limited availability now on just one night, all the rest sold out – but it’s a proper performance, fully ‘staged’ in the open, backing up to the Glyndebourne rehearsal block – which is properly incorporated into the set – and with a quite full orchestra (London Philharmonic).
It’s a great creation, very well acted and sung and played – and where else are you going to see one of those live in these days?