Glyndebourne on the Strand

Having missed Michael Grandage’s acclaimed production of Billy Budd
at Glyndebourne, I took the opportunity of seeing what all the fuss was
about at a screening in the magnificent courtyard of Somerset House on
Friday evening.

This was a tape, not a live broadcast, and the screen could have
been twice as large, really, to do the setting any sort of justice. But
the sound reproduction was good and Paule Constable’s lighting beyond
beautiful.

But the experience was curiously unsatisfactory. I see the point of
Glyndebourne selling DVDs of successful productions, but I don’t see
the point of watching a recorded performance with hundreds of other
people.

Saturday night in the courtyard must have been different, as The
Rake’s Progress was transmitted live from the Sussex Downs, and that
surely held the same sort of excitement that the live transmissions of
the National Theatre have provoked around the country.

The Grandage Billy Budd has established
the director as a force in world opera, it seems, but it’s no better
than a great revival I saw a few years ago in Copenhagen in the old
opera house.

This, above all Britten works, has the best, and the most, singing roles for men, and the cast was truly outstanding.

The occasion felt odd, though, people assembling to watch something
“dead” as if they were attending Glyndebourne itself, huddling on
blankets and cushions on the unforgiving stone surface, gamely pouring
champagne and fiddling with canapes and smoked salmon.

The weather was cloudy with gusty winds; it must be an absolute
nightmare if it rains. But toilet and bar facilities are pretty good,
and a girl I spoke to in a bar queue, who had previously seen a film
and a live concert here, reckoned the Glyndebourne experience held up
better than either of those for her. 

I just wonder, though, about this new fad for screening theatre and
opera away from its source of origin. Surely the money involved would
be much better spent on providing live events on the doorstep of the
people taking this vicarious pleasure in “exclusive”, hard-to-get-to
productions by our flagship companies?

Still, these days, with theatres like the Traverse in Edinburgh
beginning to explore live-to-screen performances around Scotland, it’s
clear we are in some transitional, experimental phase with the
exploitation of live theatre.

The one key factor, though, is that the audience at these screened
events is never in “the same room” as the performance. Participation is
therefore, by definition, second hand and voyeuristic.

And unless we are going to start re-defining what we mean by
“theatre” altogether, the live-to-screen performance is a travesty of
the art form and, in the case of subsidisied theatres, a betrayal of
the taxpayers’ investment.

The Gyndebourne at Somerset House weekend was sponsored by Associated Newspapers, owners of the Daily Mail.

It was a fairly enjoyable informal occasion, I suppose, though the
sponsors and bigwigs had a roped off area with soft cushioned seats to
sit on; they were led from the interior of Somerset House, ten minutes
after the screening was due to begin, by Viscount Rothermere himself
and his delightful wife Claudia (who takes a real interest in the
theatre).

Ironically, the only person wearing a dinner suit in the entire
place was the quirky little newspaper vendor at Belsize Park Station
who used to sell me the Evening Standard every day when Associated
still owned the title.

The least Rothermere could have done was invite him to join the private party…