And a nice long draught from the Glyndebourne Opera Cup

Samantha Hankey, winner of the Glyndebourne Opera Cup, with Dame Janet Baker
Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

You've heard about the journey home, so now here is a view from the inside on the Thing Itself, i.e. the brand-new Glyndebourne Opera Cup. I've written about it for The Arts Desk and you can find it here: https://theartsdesk.com/opera/glyndebourne-opera-cup-view-inside-0

Taster:

I was on a panel of six critics convened to choose the winner of a special ‘media award’ at the Glyndebourne Opera Cup on Saturday evening. What follows is therefore not a review, but rather a chance to chew over the concept and its highs and occasional lows. And you may be intrigued to hear that our panel and the main jury picked the exact same top three winners.

From its first season in 1934, Glyndebourne has been inextricably associated with the music of Mozart. Having decided to devote every edition of its new contest to the works of just one composer, Wolfgang Amadeus was therefore the natural choice for the inaugural event. Mozart suits young voices, as the competition’s founder, ex-Glyndebourne CEO Sebastian Schwarz, pointed out (all the finalists were aged 21-28). But also, as any professional musician will tell you, his music is the ultimate challenge. There’s nowhere to hide. His writing is so streamlined, precise and exposed that if performers are able to draw out its subtle shadings of meaning, with gorgeous tone and sincere emotional expression, you know about it fast. And if they don’t, you know about that too. It’s magic hidden in a minefield...

Read the rest here (£).


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Many a slip 'twixt opera cup and...er, East Croydon

On Saturday night I was honoured to be a member of a media panel, six critics convened to select the winner of a special award in the Glyndebourne Opera Cup. It was a wonderful event, and nice to see the gardens in early spring for a change, full of daffodils and primroses. Describing us and our task, presenter Chris Addison quipped: "That must be a fun room." You better believe it, buster - we were tucking into our sandwiches very happily, and reached exactly the same conclusion as the chief jury, but in a fraction of the time. We gave our media prize to the lovely American mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey, who also emerged with overall first prize. I'm writing a full account of the evening at the moment and will post a link as soon as it goes live. 

What follows now is what followed.

Unfortunately Southern Trains had decided to do weekend engineering works that day, so the Lewes line was closed south of Three Bridges. The press office kindly agreed to provide the five of us who needed transport with a large taxi to and from Three Bridges station. 

Coming back afterwards, large taxi is late, but eventually turns up driven by cheerful if charmingly dim cabby, who treats us to a CD of Christian devotional songs from the 1970s twice through. After three hours of unadulterated Mozart, it's briefly refreshing; we could, of course, use some silence, but politely do not object. At some point the critic of the Financial Times notes quietly: "This journey feels longer than the one on the way down, doesn't it?" 

He's not wrong. "Oh," says cabby, "I missed the turning. Sorry 'bout that..." We go round a roundabout in a concrete wasteland for a second time, take a bumbly right turn across a carriageway on which a maniac is speeding towards us at what looks like 95mph, and pull up outside...Crawley station. But we don't want Crawley - the trains crawl. We want Three Bridges, whence trains go lickety-split to Victoria via Clapham Junction, and it's very nearby. Indeed, it's round the corner. There were signposts to it. Cheerful cabby can't find it. "Uh, that's where the satnav sent me... Dunno why I did that... I think it's just down here, let's go round this roundabout again." 

We do. We turn right. "Oh whoops, I think this was the wrong one..." - and, boing, we're back on the M23, with no turnoff before Gatwick, 'Amazing Grace' blaring out. One of us suggests going to Gatwick instead - it's only a mile away and there are more trains. We head for Gatwick...

...to find that the motorway exit, bless its cotton socks, is closed for roadworks. There isn't another for many miles. The deputy editor of Opera Magazine discovers on Google Maps that it will now take 26 minutes to get to Gatwick, despite it being 1 mile away, and it's only 3 mins longer to drive to East Croydon... 

Cheerful cabby, eye on meter, agrees to take us to the latter, as we can't turn round now in any case. A few miles up the A23 by a traffic light, there's a sign to Coulsdon station. Taxi screeches to halt: "Is it that station you mean?" No. The name's Croydon. East Croydon. 

We trundle through the backwoods of Surrey, which are quite extensive, to South Croydon. "Is it that station there?" No. That one's South Croydon. It's only just down the road from....

Full credit to the deputy arts editor of The Times, who is in the front seat, asserts his authority, finds the right turnoff and navigates us safely to East Croydon at long last.

Moral: never underestimate a bunch of music critics. And if your cabby puts on a playlist of devotional songs from the 1970s, exit the cab at once. Don't wait. Run. 


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Glyndebourne launches major new singing competition

Glyndebourne. Photo: glyndebourne.com/David Illman

Glyndebourne's announcement today of a new competition for young singers is a big deal indeed. The top prize in the biennial Glyndebourne Opera Cup will be £15,000 and a "platform for launching an international career"; the jury consists of directors, agents and head casting honchos from some of Europe's top operatic organisations; and Sky Arts is to televise an associated series of programmes. Preliminary rounds will be held in different cities and the finals at Glyndebourne itself. Dame Janet Baker is honorary president. 

Intriguingly, they have decided to focus on a different composer every time the competition is held - and for the first session in 2018 it is Mozart, with idiomatic accompaniment provided by the OAE. 

The contest is the brainchild of Glyndebourne's general director, Sebastian Schwarz, who says: 

“I’ve been on the judging panels of a number of singing competitions and have seen what works and what doesn’t. When I arrived at Glyndebourne, with its giant reputation for discovering exceptional talent, it seemed an incredible opportunity to design the perfect singing competition from scratch. To me this means offering maximum benefit to those who enter. This is reflected in the jury which comprises esteemed colleagues representing houses that, like Glyndebourne, have a lot to offer competitors as they seek to develop careers. Our ambition is to establish The Glyndebourne Opera Cup as among the premiere competitions of its kind and we are delighted to be partnering with Sky Arts to bring this to a wider audience.”

Singers up to the age of 28 are eligible. Applications open later this year and preliminary rounds will be held in January in Philadelphia, London and Berlin, with the final next summer at Glyndebourne. The jury is:

• Sebastian F. Schwarz, General Director, Glyndebourne (Chair)
• Barrie Kosky, Artistic Director, Komische Oper Berlin
• David Devan, General Director and President, Opera Philadelphia
• Joan Matabosch, Artistic Director, Teatro Real de Madrid
• Sophie de Lint, Artistic Director, Zurich Opera and Director designate of Dutch National Opera
• Fortunato Ortombina, Artistic Director, Teatro La Fenice, Venice
• Pål Christian Moe, Casting Consultant for Bayerische Staatsoper Munich and Glyndebourne
• Maria Mot, Associate Director, Vocal & Opera, Intermusica