The Glyndebourne Festival is underway, a 50th anniversary season already marked by the sad death of its previous owner-chairman Sir George Christie, a scandal around critics' comments on a female singer's (by no means unusual) body shape, and a production of Der Rosenkavalier that opens on its Marschallin naked in the shower.
And it only opened less a week ago!
But it's worth looking at some highlights still to come. The Rosenkav will come to cinemas and the BBC Proms. A revival of Graham Vick's classic, marvellously perceptive production of Eugene Onegin (why don't English companies, still, call is Evgeny Onegin?) conducted by Barenboim protégé Omer Meier Wellber and starring 2009 Cardiiff Singer of the World Ekaterina Scherbachenko has also already opened to good reviews. Vick himself returned to supervise the revival.
Andres Orozco-Estrada, new Chief Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic (Glyndebourne's house band), helms a revival of Jonathan Kent's staging of Mozart's Don Giovanni. A pair of Canadians, Elliot Madore and Layla Claire, feature as Giovanni and Donna Anna. Robin Ticciati takes on his second opera as music director (after the Rosenkav), Mozart's little-heard La finta giardiniera. That production is by Frederic Wake-Walker.
Another new production, La Traviata, brings Mark Elder back to Verdi, a speciality of his since his English National Opera days. The staging is by Tom Cairns and stars Venera Gimadieva and the rising Michael Fabiano. And Otttavio Dantone conducts Robert Carsen's production of Handel's Rinaldo. Some high-profile casting pairs counter-tenor Iestyn Davies and the soprano Karina Gauvin.
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