Last week I was invited to Glyndebourne to photograph some of the amazing people who attend the opera and there were some brilliantly dressed operagoers, but you’ll have to wait till next week to take a look.
Walking around the grounds of Glyndebourne is exciting enough in itself, I’m not green-fingered to say the least and the magnificent borders left me open-mouthed and snapping away. There’s a lake and lawns and lots of places to park your picnic. Did I mention at Glyndebourne people take picnics really seriously? Like bringing along a china vase and flowers along with full sets of cutlery and linen tablecoth, love it.
The opera was a double bill of Ravel classics, great for someone like me who has had their attention span ripped to shreds by the internet. L’heure espagnole is a comical tale of one woman’s trouble to keep her various lovers and clockmaker husband in check. L’enfant et les sortileges is a magical story of a boy who gets his comeuppance after a destructive tantrum. The costumes are incredible, everyone from the toile de Jouy people who come out of the wallpaper to the little children dressed as frogs, it made me want to become a costume designer.
The Glyndebourne folk treated us to an interval picnic, when I say picnic it wasn’t a tinnie of Fosters, warm quiche and a bit of fizzy hoummous. We came out for the interval and the hamper to beat all hampers was waiting for us, cutlery, linen, champagne flutes, water glasses, china and even miniature bottles of cream for the thermos of hot coffee. The picnic is kind of pricey, but if you’ve ever wanted a treat I definitely recommend it, at times it felt so ridiculously decadent we just started laughing at fanciness of it all. I went for a mix of fish and meat with salmon, lobster, a gorgeous terrine and some melting rare beef. Summer pudding and a cheese board was the obvious choice to finish it all off.
Glyndebourne Festival continues through August, for more information click here.
Every time I walked around the grounds I’d get a shot of this hero
Rare beef of dreams
These tree costumes were incredible, they rustled when the singers moved.
The organ room, check the dude on the left, chilling.
I wish I could say they were my mum and dad.
