FAMILY CIRCLE

But we gotta call it a night. This past year has been a fun experiment creating and managing an arts blog, but we gotta tell ya: it ain't easy! And to be frank, recognizing that one might be writing about an event can spoil some of the enjoyment when actually attending that event.

Thank you to all our regular visitors (and the many many readers who have found our humble little site through search engines) for taking time to read our blog. Thankfully, there is no shortage of arts blogs. A few of our favorites are (obviously!) Parterre Box, Intermezzo, The Rest Is Noise, and Likely Impossibilities, whose bloggeress will be returning from her sojourn in Vienna to reclaim her position as a New York correspondent of the arts scene.

I guess this is goodbye, old pal, you've been a perfect friend.

Dear Readers:

There are several meccas of operagoing around the world. Of course, there is La Scala, the Vienna Staatsoper, and the Metropolitan Opera if only for their opulence and standing as world class opera houses (to a lesser degree, one might include the Royal Opera...ya, we went there); all of Vienna, 'cuz its Vienna; and of course the Beyreuth and Salzburg festivals for their....who we kidding, if you frequent this site, you know why. A little gem of a festival that often goes overlooked in the glare of Salzburg, Baden-Baden, Aux-en-Provonce, and Bayreuth is that of the Glyndebourne festival in the hamlet village of Lewes, about an hour outside of London. Hardly an unrecognized festival but this one seems intent on foregoing the bright lights so as to better maintain its elegance. Here we spent a lovely Sunday for a performance of Mozart and Da Ponte's "Don Giovanni." Now we're not saying that Glyndebourne is or is not an excessive (read: stuffy) affair, though there is quite a large bit of that going on. That said the festival is a requisite experience for any serious opera queen...I mean opera-goer.

Part of the Glyndebourne experience (and considering the exorbitant cost for tickets and the hour plus train ride it takes to get to Lewes, an experience it BETTER BE!), is enjoying the picturesque grounds surrounding the venue. Couples stroll by in formal evening attire - as is tradition - which is rather a peculiar sight. On a sunny Sunday afternoon in England, must we really wear black suits? That said, well manicured English gardens that seem to go on for miles surround Glyndebourne; it takes nearly an hour to make one's way around the complex at a leisurely pace. Now, couple this with several glasses of wine - and you just KNOW we had to - and the two hours between arrival on the grounds passes in a blink. The same can be said for the "long interval" that occurs during each opera throughout the festival: a 90 minute break between acts that allows the patron to stroll the grounds or take a relaxed dinner break at one of the venue's three restaurants.

Now, poor planning caused FC to miss the boat on Middle and Over Wallop, Glyndebourne's highest tier restaurant. Instead, we had to settle for Near Wallop (guess why it got it's name?). Not exactly Per Se (or even Dovetail for that matter), that said, the restaurant served a lovely English carving buffet. Both hearty and (relatively) well seasoned, the meal stood out as better than most as far as British cooking goes. (And before I get angry comments from Britons who tell me "You don't know what you're talking about!!! Fucking American!!" I say this: I lived in your fair country over a year and regularly travel throughout, I've recently been to your only three-star restaurant, and yes...I do go outside of Leicster Square for my meals while in London, thank you very much.) The lovely spread of food made the 90 minute interval seem like nothing - we hardly made it through our bottle of wine and our choice of any, and all, four desserts with an assortment of cheeses.

Considering this IS an opera festival, one might ask: Well...how was the motherfucking opera?!?! (Family Circle apologizes for its use of profanity, we seem to have been affected by some recent theater here in London as well as in NYC.) The answer is superlative. Some caveats are appropriate here. Glyndebourne is not a "celeb" festival. Though you might see a Gerald Finley or Miah Persson, one does not expect to come and catch Anna Netrebko performing Adina. And to be quite honest, all the better! What better chance to see new or overlooked talent? Though we had previously experienced Lucas Meachem (A less than stellar Don Giovanni), Toby Spence (here playing a too Italian Don Ottavio), and Persson (gurl, we did NOT like you in Cosi at the Met, but you just kill it in smaller houses!), we never knew the names of Albina Shagimuratova (Donna Anna) or Matthew Rose (Leporello). Having heard these two voices, we are awakened to two new talents and are excited to see them again.

The production, directed by Jonathan Kent, has been issued on DVD so we allow you our readers to make what you will of the "Le Dolce Vita" inspired production. Personally, we loved it and found Kent's use of a cube turning and opening like a music box both economical as well as a great means to tell this story. Yes, we may have giggled at the very end when Giovanni was dragged to hell, but damn it, it was scary for a minute!

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment as conducted by (hot hot hot!) Robin Ticciati were wonderful, if not exceptional. Ticciati lead both singers and orchestra with an able hand, but we found the overall sound lacking in intensity, particularly in the first act. To nit-pick is really what we do here, but we also freely afford complements, for example, to the orchestra: you guys rocked tonight. And as for Ticciati, we look forward to seeing you conduct our beloved Met Orchestra next season.

So yea, clearly the opera is secondary in a Glyndebourne experience. But when the weather is crisp, the champagne bubbly, the grass a wondrous shade of green and you're out in the English countryside, does anything else really exist in the world?

Not to us at least.