A Home for Poor Mozart

One chilly evening last week, while visitors in evening dress strolled the lawns of his 135-acre estate, an old gentleman in tennis shoes sat in his 700-year-old manor house and reminisced. "Once I began to inherit family properties," he said, "it was really my job to build a better world. And besides, I always had so much sympathy for poor little Mozart.''

Moved by his sympathy and a desire "to bring first-rate opera to this country,'' John Christie of Sussex founded (in 1934) the only privately owned Opera in England. Since then, Christie's little, 800-seat

Glyndebourne (rhymes with find horn) Opera has built a reputation for performances of Mozart and other composers that any opera house in the world might envy.

Last week mid-afternoon travelers in London's Victoria Station recognized the signs of a new season when they saw a crowd in formal dress scurrying to catch the 3:45 for Lewes, Sussex, 54 miles away.

Medieval Wonder. On opening night the curtain at Glyndebourne rose ten minutes late, at 5:40. The opera was Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande, the first French work ever done at Glyndebourne. The dreamily romantic settings, highlighted by ingenious lighting effects, perfectly conveyed the sense of medieval wonder that is an important part of the opera. The cast had been painstakingly and expertly drilled by Conductor Vittorio Gui. In the pit the Royal Philharmonic sounded first-rate--particularly so in a theater whose sharp acoustics are ideally adapted to Debussy's richly inlaid instrumental patterns.

As it has grown in artistry, Glyndebourne has also grown socially. During its three-month season English bluebloods battle for tickets, and by midsummer the Times is running piteous appeals ("Two Glyndebourne tickets. Any opera. Any price. Any night.") Although formal dress is now "recommended" rather than required, the great majority of the audience turns up black-tied and bejeweled. In the 75-minute intermission between acts, the orchestra usually gathers to play croquet by the fading evening light while the audience sets up their folding tables on the lawn and dines from bulging wicker picnic baskets.

Seeking Perfection. Founder Christie, a onetime Eton science master, became fascinated with opera after inheriting $1,329,000 and 10,000 acres of Sussex-Devonshire real estate and subsequently marrying Singer Audrey Mildmay. From the first, he was frankly "seeking perfection"--and he paid to get it. For the posts of conductor, producer, and general manager, he imported a trio of top talents.

Fritz Busch, Carl Ebert and Rudolf Bing (who left Glyndebourne in 1949 to go to the Met). In its search for "perfect opera." Glyndebourne now allows an unprecedented six weeks of rehearsal for each production, insists that with rare exceptions singers remain in residence at least four weeks--a provision that drives away heavily scheduled prima donnas.

Says General Manager Moran Caplat: "We don't like the star system. We want the audience to hear opera rather than see Miss X." Glyndebourne still is heaviest on Mozart (Marriage of Figaro has been done a record 114 times), but the house has also presented a good share of the Italian repertory plus the premieres of such contemporary works as Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring and Rape of Lucretia and the first English productions of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress and Hans Werner Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers. The country opera gets along on box office and private contributions. Says Christie: "We would not take a state subsidy if offered it." The uniquely local flavor that Glyndebourne still retains is reflected in the remark made one evening at intermission by a neighboring peer: "I come to John for opera. He comes to me for shooting."

Nothing annoys Christie more than the suggestion that Glyndebourne is a plaything of the rich. "I ask people to dress," says he, "because they should go through the trouble to do it. We take trouble. So should they. It brings mutual respect. I don't give a damn about snobbishness."

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