Seeds are always best planted deep, and opera’s magic started to grow quietly in me as a child. My father took me to see Die Zauberflöte when I was still quite small, too young to be awed by the idea of opera or to have absorbed any ideas about it being difficult or elitist or intimidating. I simply fell madly in love with the bird man and the bears and the Queen of the Night and the enchanting, eccentric Mozart madness of The Magic Flute. I still can’t hear Papageno’s magic bells without a soaring feeling of joy, the grandness of wearing a party dress and being allowed up late, of the sense-memory of my small, hot hand in my father’s large, cool one as we sat in the darkness, listening.
When I graduated and moved to London, I’d book a seat in the upper slips at the Royal Opera House for about a tenner. For that money I’d try to see something once a month (glass of tap water in the interval, night bus home) and take a risk on things I didn’t know or had never heard of – a good way to hone your palate. Thirty years later one can still get a ticket for ten or fifteen pounds and it is one of the many reasons why I think Alex Beard is a god.
> Download the Walpole Cultural Calendar here
We must celebrate the rich diversity of music in this country. Whether your preference is for pop or Puccini you can always find live performance from musicians at the top of their game. Come festival season the fact that Glyndebourne and Glastonbury alike continue to sell-out the minute tickets go on sale is testament to how good we are at creating spectacle here.
But muddy wellies, porta-loos and face glitter are not for me. You can keep Glasto with its headliners and pyramid stage, I am Glyndebourne til I die. I’ve written before that a balmy summer’s evening there is my idea of perfect luxury. I start planning my picnic menu months before we’re due to go, and when the day comes I’m there as the gate opens and swan grandly through the beautiful gardens in my best frock to my preferred picnic spot, my husband staggering behind me like a dinner-jacket-wearing Sherpa, laden with baskets of food, champagne, white table cloths and damask napkins, pillar candles in hurricane lamps. The performances are so exquisite it seems only right to pay homage to them with such elaborate ceremony. I loved L’Elisir D’Amour this year, not least for the added pleasure of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s breathtaking playing in the pit.
Sadly, my abiding passion for Handel and other baroque composers is not shared by my husband who was only cajoled into going with me to Theodora at Covent Garden last year because pole dancers featured in Katie Mitchell’s production. I hope the Purcell, Handel & Gluck I’ve included in this playlist shows they’re as easy on the ear as a Donizetti or Puccini. I know I will never convince him, but perhaps I might persuade you.
Much as I aspire to tackling the Marathon des Sables that is Wagner’s Ring Cycle, I still can’t hack it, so there are no rare Wagner grooves or deep cuts on on this playlist. However, I offer you a selection from the operas I love best, those I’ve fallen in love with either the Royal Opera House or at Glyndebourne over the years, and I hope you love them too. If not, I commend you instead to the excellent back catalogue of Walpole Weekend Wind-down playlists - there's something there for everyone.
My great hope is that something on this playlist might whet your appetite for going to the Royal Opera House not only for the music but to marvel at the exceptional craftsmanship and skill that goes into putting on a production of that quality. Alex Beard once described the set builders, costume designers, musicians and singers - as well as the many unsung heroes that make the magic happen - as the 'Team GB of British creativity'. I never leave a performance without a sense that I’ve been on the receiving end of a massive bargain: all that extraordinary talent for the price of a dinner in the West End. I’ll be thinking of that when I take my seat for Jeptha next month.
> Read Helen Brocklebank's letter about the importance of British culture to the luxury sector