theguardian - 1 days ago

While most of us were trying to master sourdough and watching Tiger King, Mark-Anthony Turnage put the pandemic to better use and wrote an opera. Five years later it’s coming to Glyndebourne. He tells us howI have history with Glyndebourne. Back in 1984 when I was a naive 24-year-old, I was a music copyist to make ends meet. My great friend and teacher Oliver Knussen got me work on his opera Where the Wild Things Are ahead of its premiere by Glyndebourne Touring Opera.I decamped to Lewes and stayed up, often all night, handwriting orchestral parts with my colleagues. I learned a lot during those high-stress days. I’ve been to many performances at Glyndebourne since, and 20 years ago was in talks with the artistic team about writing a new opera, but I never found a subject that suited. A decade later, my partner Rachael Hewer started working there as an assistant director and I regularly went to stay during the summer and autumn seasons, often at Gus Christie’s house (the wonderful Glyndebourne House, which once belonged to the festival’s founders John Christie and Audrey Mildmay). I started thinking it would be fun to write an opera for all the new friends I’d met there. Then Covid struck. Rachael and I, like everyone else, needed to do something constructive with all those extra hours on our hands. We hatched a plan: to write an opera. Continue reading...

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