Glyndebourne: The Untold History Page #2

---

And she famously remarked,

"For God's sake, John -

"if you're going to spend all that

money, do the thing properly."

So he took her advice

and built her a 300-seat barn in

the Kitchen Garden of Glyndebourne.

What they wanted to do was create

the festival atmosphere

that they had enjoyed in Europe in

this country, to bring the standard

of performance they'd been enjoying

in Europe into this country.

At that point,

all idea of amateur performances

was completely cast aside.

He was very fortunate to secure

two of Germany's top

directors at that time in Carl Ebert

and Fritz Busch.

This was the period just before 1933

when political interference both from

the left and right was increasingly

becoming a problem in Germany.

A lot of musicians were

denounced in the Nazi press

and one prominent musician

was Fritz Busch, the general

music director in Dresden.

Not Jewish,

but the brother of Adolf Busch,

who was a very famous violinist,

who was an outspoken

opponent of the Nazis and who

actually left Germany in 1929.

Fritz Busch was busy

working in the opera house

and stormtroopers came into the

building while he was rehearsing

and tried to prevent him

from carrying on the rehearsal.

He was forcibly removed

from the opera house.

Adolf Busch, Fritz's brother

and leader of the Busch Quartet,

was stranded in Eastbourne after

a concert and conversation turned

to Glyndebourne over dinner

and the fact that Captain Christie

had built this opera house

in the middle of the countryside

and he was looking for a conductor.

Adolf said, "Well, you could speak

to my brother, Fritz."

Christie and Busch finally met

in the January of 1934 in Amsterdam

and it was a strange

meeting by all accounts.

Fritz expounded at great

length about his beliefs

in music, in singing, in what

he wanted to achieve,

in not wanting to use big names,

wanting to seek out new talents

and so on, and apparently John

sat there, seemed to be asleep.

So Fritz believed.

Then he got up and went, "Yes, that

was very interesting - thank you."

And left.

And Fritz was left apparently

thinking, "Well,

"I don't think anything is going

to come of that," and of course

a week or so later, got the letter

saying, "Right - let's start."

NEWSREEL:
Here, members of the cast

were discussing the score

for the night's performance.

The music, too, was under

the direction of

one of the original team -

Dr Fritz Busch.

His influence was

so very civilised and humane.

As a German,

he had the discipline

and the absolute method.

When Busch arrived at Glyndebourne,

the tables were set out

and polished, his ruler and his

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes