I was somewhat moved (sentimental as I am) by a piece in the Guardian today about The Rake's Progress which opens at Glyndebourne next Sunday. This will be the umpteenth revival of the celebrated John Cox/David Hockney production which was one of the two new productions at Glyndebourne 35 years ago in 1975.
I saw John Cox at lunch in the canteen at Glyndebourne two weeks ago looking as fresh as ever -- and it is clear that the production will return similarly new and shiny. He was speaking enthusiastically about the cast he has this year. But I am sure he is remembering also the wonderful team we put together all those years ago including US opera legends Donald Gramm and Rosalind Elias. It is still available on DVD but with another legend, Samuel Ramey, as Nick Shadow.
Bernard Haitink, soon then to become Glyndebourne's music director, conducted; and the twenty year old Simon Rattle, in his first year on the Glyndebourne music staff, was his assistant. None of us can forget the creative buzz during those five weeks of rehearsal. We knew something very special was happening, but no one could have imagined that 35 years later it would still be able to delight and illuminate as I have no doubt it will again in the forthcoming run.
I urge you to read the piece in the Guardian. It is a delightful piece which reflects very accurately to me the feelings we all had about this production. And the stuff about David Hockney and his passion for new gadgets reminded me about an incident in 1979 when we revived the Zauberflöte production that he and John Cox had created the previous year.
I emerged from the theater and encountered David with an apparatus around his head and he yelled at me "coom 'ere Braan, just listen ter this" -- this was my first encounter with the Sony Walkman -- at that time known as the Sony Soundabout. As always, then as evidently still, David was an "early adopter" -- the thing was still unavailable in England and was the new miracle that eventually changed the world!