Conductor Enrique Mazzola and Director Annabel Arden talk to James Whitbourn about their production of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore at the Glyndebourne Festival 2011. Recorded on location at Glyndebourne summer 2011 ..read more

Director Robert Carsen and Dramaturg Ian Burton talk talk to James Whitbourn about Handel's Rinaldo first performed at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2011 and revived in 2014. Recorded on location at Glyndebourne in summer 2011 ..read more

Conductor Vladimir Jurowski talks to James Whitbourn about Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which was first performed at Glyndebourne in summer 2011. The DVD and Blu-ray of this production are available from the Glyndebourne shop: https://www.glyndebourneshop.com/wagner-die-meistersinger-von-nurnberg-2011/ Produced for Festival 2011 ..read more

Conductor Sir Andrew Davis and Director Melly Still talk to James Whitbourn about Dvořák's Rusalka. Clips from the Glyndebourne CD label recording - available in the Glyndebourne Shop. http://glyndebourne.com/shop/cds-audio/glyndebourne-cd-label Produced for Festival 2011 ..read more

Conductor Jakub Hrůša and Director Jonathan Kent talk to James Whitbourn about The Turn of the Screw. Clips from the Glyndebourne CD label recording - available in the Glyndebourne Shop. http://cms.glyndebourne.com/shop/cds-audio/glyndebourne-cd-label Produced for Festival 2011 ..read more

For Britten's centenary year, Fiona Shaw directs a new production of The Rape of Lucretia, which had its first performance at Glyndebourne in 1946. In this podcast, presenter Peggy Reynolds shares some of the recollections of the original production's star - the great mezzo Kathleen Ferrier - and the creative team who brought Britten's work to the stage. Glyndebourne's dramaturg Cori Ellison, considers the place of The Rape of Lucretia within Britten's canon of works, as the first of his 'chamber operas', and explores the source material for Ronald Duncan's libretto. The conductor, Nicholas Co ..read more

A guide to Glyndebourne's signature opera, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, with music from the live recording of our 1962 production. Presenter Peggy Reynolds explores the historical context of the opera, the politics behind its humour, and Mozart's sublime music of rage and forgiveness. With contributions from Conductor Jane Glover, General Director of Glyndebourne David Pickard, Head of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London, Julian Johnson and Dr John Leigh of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge – a specialist in 18th Century French thought and literature. [Producer: Mair Bosworth for Fe ..read more

Peggy Reynolds provides a historical and musical introduction to one of the great works of French Baroque opera, Jean-Philippe Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie. We hear from Jeanice Brooks, Professor of Music at the University of Southampton, who identifies Rameau as an almost exact contemporary of Handel and Bach, who started his musical career as an organist and theorist and went on to stage lavish operas for Louis XV as 'Compositeur du Cabinet du Roi'. From writer and mythographer Marina Warner, who unfolds the myth which forms the basis of the opera's narrative, and explores the Racine play wh ..read more

Ariadne auf Naxos brings together the 'high art' of opera seria and the lighter, comic entertainment of the commedia dell'arte. Peggy Reynolds provides a historical and musical introduction to this ambitious, witty and intricately crafted collaboration between Richard Strauss and his librettist, the poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal. With contributions from the writer and broadcaster David Nice, who provides expert insight into Strauss's use of the orchestra to explore the theme of 'high' versus 'low' art. From theatre director Didi Hopkins of Commediaworks, who explains the history of ..read more

Peggy Reynolds explores Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale. With expert insights from the conductor, Sir Mark Elder, who argues that Don Pasquale is "a brilliant refilling of an old mould". From Francesco Izzo, Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Southampton, who sets the opera into the wider historical context of the development of opera buffa, arguing that Don Pasquale was a new kind of comic opera, one which treats its characters with great empathy and warmth. From Glyndebourne's dramaturg, Cori Ellison, on the origins of the Basso Buffo character in Italian commedia dell'arte and D ..read more