GLYNDEBOURNE: CHRISTMAS CONCERT 2024

Glyndebourne Christmas Concert 2024 featuring the Glyndebourne Sinfonia, Glyndebourne Chorus, Glyndebourne Youth Opera and conductor Aidan Oliver. © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: ASH.

In my season of choral excursions the festival fare delivered by the Glyndebourne Chorus and Sinfonia is always a treat and in particular because it always features the Glyndebourne Youth Opera. I make no comparison here between my coverage of Brighton and Hove’s community choirs, Glyndebourne is a professional organisation and one that includes current and future stars of the opera world and as such is a very different entity entirely.

Conductor Aidan Oliver and instrumentalists from the Glyndebourne Sinfonia. © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: ASH.

Under the baton of Aidan Oliver one has come to expect an event peppered with wit and wisdom and this he never fails to deliver. His introductions and anecdotes, not all based in truths, are such a delight that were he not the chorus director he would easily find work as a TV presenter of quiz shows and panel games, in fact he is far better than many already employed in that world.

But I digress, the concert is all about the music, and once again a delicious banquet of seasonal treats and operatic delights. The first half of the concert offers up overtures and arias, starting with Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, then Verdi’s Otello and shifting with ease to Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, each showing once more the talents of the assembled ensemble.

Then to the stage come soloists Jade Moffat and Vadyslava Yakovenko, try saying that after a Long Bar mulled cider and a mince pie! But what a treat to hear them shine in Offenbach’s Barcarolle from Les Contes d’Hoffman.

Oliver then tell us about Gustav Holst and his dedication to education after the success of his most famous composition, The Planets. His fantasy on Old Carols, Christmas Day, written we are told for amateur choirs is packed with the Christmas songs we love, and beautifully delivered by Sophie Sparrow, Rhiannon Taylor, Michael Wallace and Charles Cunliffe who are placed apart, two singing from the circle balcony to give a striking spatial sound to the whole.

Saint-Saens follows with a rousing romp from Samson et Dalila before part one culminating in John Rutter’s Gloria, the first movement, in honour of his recent knighthood and recognition of course of his immense contribution to the choral repertoire.

Following the interval the Youth Opera join the chorus and orchestra on the stage for a programme far more seasonal, in fact you are probably going to enjoy more traditional Christmas carols here than in you average church service these days, and I am all for that. But first off Oliver tells us about Franz von Suppé, an Austrian composer with a complex heritage and a name that demanded to be shortened. The name may be unfamiliar but his Light Cavalry overture is not, a jolly romp of a piece that had the audience smiling throughout.

Part two as usual has carols in which we are invited, with some instruction, to join in. But first Rutter’s Arrangement of I Saw Three Ships and at last we get to hear the Youth Opera, and what a delight they are, all in black but bedecked in tinsel. For the most part they behave with stately dignity as most choral ensembles are instructed to do, except a few. And how we love seeing those few who simply cannot contain their joy in singing on one of the most prestigious stages in the musical world. A tiny girl who expresses herself by tilting her head from side to side as she sings and a young man whose hand movements are so expressive when singing, and even when not singing he cannot resist drumming along and even conducting, so delightful and so much an expression of Glyndebourne’s continued dedication to musical education. From 9 to 19, local young people are invited to audition to be part of this group and take part in many of the professional productions.

Next we get to sing While Shepherds Watched and a hearty job the audience make of it only to be totally eclipsed by the kids again, singing a Dominican carol, Cantemos a Maria, a piece they clearly delight in.

A setting of In The Bleak Mid-Winter next by Bob Chilcott, Christina Rossetti’s poem has so many settings and whilst I enjoyed this I did hanker for something more familiar, Harold Darke or Gustav Holst perhaps, but I am getting old and enjoy those memories of my church childhood.

To bounce us back to earthly pleasures the kids then sang the very silly I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas, fun but sung with so much gusto that I failed to catch every word, but again seeing the delight on their faces more than made up for that.

The First Noel had us joining in once more as did Silent Night but in between we enjoyed the utterly charming Skater’s Waltz by Emile Waldteufel, the pure essence of a winter’s scene and again an opportunity for Oliver to exercise his talent to amuse.

Next John Williams’ very familiar piece of cinematic scoring, Hedgewig’s Theme from the Harry Potter movies. It certainly displays the art of cinema scoring at the highest level, an art that is sometimes dismissed, but hearing it played by the Glyndebourne Sinfonia does prove it to be a work of class.

Bringing is back to reality we get Rudolph, the reindeer of course, fun stuff that leads us into a sing-along Twelve Days Of Christmas and finally as an encore a delicious arrangement of White Christmas with that lovely sound so typical of a classic period Hollywood musical.

With some sadness, and some relief, we emerge to find that whilst inside it has not snowed as it did a few years back, but with wet cheeks, yes at moments the concert had brought tears to my eyes, I left feeling that Christmas was officially here.

Andrew Kay

15 December

Glyndebourne Opera House

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