Do you remember about a month ago I told you I was off to the Opera for the first time?
Well now I’m back from Glyndebourne Opera Festival, and no longer an opera first timer! I’ll confess I was soo nervous about it at first! I didn’t know how to get there or what happened once you were there, but I made it through unscathed and had a properly magical time!
Be warned people, this is a picture heavy post, but I promise they are pretty pictures worth waiting for!
We caught the free coach from the train station to the opera house and on arrival I had to go up to the press office and pick up my tickets. They took us on a little tour of the house and grounds. Apparently the opera started originally when the houses owner John Christie, would hold little impromptu Operas in the organ room of the house (I do this sort of thing in my living room all the time, obviously).
During one of those performances the confirmed bachelor fell madly in love with opera singer Audrey Mildmay, and 6 months later they were married. As a sort of wedding present he built her an opera house in the grounds and the annual festival was born. I think the most anyone has ever built me out of love is a shoe rack.
Here they are, on the side in the Organ Room.
Everyone gets to see this bit, but as part of our little tour we got to see BACK STAGE. I love seeing backstage at the theatre. The contrast between the glitter and lights on stage and the set up behind always totally entrances me. It’s like knowing diamonds and coal are the same substance. Amazing.
Post tour I took a little stroll and snapped some photos of glamorous audience members, which I won’t show you here as they will hopefully soon be appearing elsewhere. The grounds were glorious though. Beautiful gardens with a lake, and a Ha Ha, which wasn’t as high as the one at Houghton Hall the other week, but considering it is a fairly rare architectural feature it was a coincidence to see two in as many weeks!
We were there to see Falstaff, a comedic opera, which this year has been set in the 1940s (hence inviting me to go!) and has excellent reviews, so I was genuinely excited!
The first half of the performance was about an hour and 45 minutes long. Obviously the Opera is in Italian, of which I know none, but the performance has subtitles on a screen above the stage so you could follow the story. The story of each act is also written up in the program (or on Wikipedia) so if you do a bit of swotting up in advance you can follow what’s going on anyway, though some of the lyrics are hilarious so it’s worth glancing up occasionally!
Then, of course, it was time for the important business of picnicking. I’d been going on about picnics for ages, and in the end time constraints (and a lack of kitchen as I was staying away from home) meant elaborate baking was out, so we packed a picnic basket with champagne flutes and paper plates and a cool box with goodies from Marks & Spencer. Namely a goats cheese tart, olives, cold meats and strawberries. Plus cheese and bread from the market and a bottle of Cava disguised in the Lanson champagne cool sleeve I Â was tricked into buying in Sainsburys.
I tell you. We were seriously out-picnicked. If I ever do this again I am pulling out all the stops. People had folding tables and chairs, candelabras, flower arrangements, filter coffee and I’ve never heard so many Champagne corks popping (and I’m pretty sure no one else hid Cava in a Champagne sleeve)
My picnic blanket just was not cutting it. Not when this is available in the gift shop for a mere £450. Yes, that is a golf cart picnic hamper. (please note fancy earrings in the above picture, they are another lot of vintage clips ons I got last weekend in an antique shop in Norwich)
People take their picnics, find their spot, set up and then just leave it. You don’t need to pack it all up and take it back into the auditorium, this is not a place where opportunistic thieves are going to run off with your dinner, which is also wonderful.
So, picnic over, we went off to fleece the gift shop of wooden picnic forks with a G for Glyndebourne (or Gemma) and boxes of matches (the cheapest thing in there at 30p) so we could get a Glyndebourne carrier bag to impress people with when we reuse it for carrying parcels to the post office.
we returned for part 2 of Falstaff. Photography is unfortunately forbidden inside the auditorium, so once again I must leave you with a large blank space here.
Glyndebourne isn’t as prohibitively expensive a thing to do as I thought it was. I looked at the prices for the seats I was in, and they cost between £75-£150, not cheap, but then neither are theatre tickets generally, and this is GLYNDEBOURNE. You can also get standing places for about £30. You can take your own food and drink, so costs can be reduced there, and it’s really such great fun and an amazing experience to get dressed up and picnic in such a beautiful place and take in the atmosphere of an event with such heritage and traditions, even if you’re not a huge opera fan!
So, I shall leave you with the most important part of my Glyndebourne experience. What did I WEAR?!
Well, I felt very fancy, I was quite chuffed when I realised that new this outfit would probably have cost going on for £400, but I paid less than £30 for the lot, super smug Charity Shop Queen that I am, which meant I had money left to buy gift shop tat, yay!
You’ll notice in pictures above my hair is pinned back, where as here it is down, truth is my curls weren’t up to the wind and the Sussex Mist (which is definitely “a thing” as I heard a man talking about it and a woman asking “is that common in this area” which made me giggle, very quietly, behind my hand)
⤠Dress – Jaegar ⤠Shoes- Salvador Sapena ⤠Bag – Vintage â¤
â¤Â Pearl Necklace – My Nana’s â¤Earrings – Vintage ⤠Hair Flower – Betsy Hatter â¤
The dress is Jaegar and came from a Charity Shop last November for about £15 and I have been waiting AGES for an event to wear it. It has gorgeous satin and crepe panelled skirt and is very 1930s, falling to just above the ankle, which is the perfect length to show off my 1940s style Salvador Sapena mules that I bought for 99p on eBay. I also took my glamorous vintage diamante plisse handbag that Mr Chicks Mum gave me, and I wore my Nana’s pearls, as I thought she would have liked them to go to the Opera. As the weather was bad I teamed it with a Kookai shrug that I bought in the sale about 7 years ago, which I’m never sure I love that much, and then I do, but it kept me warm!
If you made it through all that, hurrah!
Have you been to the opera before? Would you like to go?
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Comments
27 responses to “Retro Chick Goes to Glyndebourne”
@Retrochick_uk Interesting! And.. you look amazing!.. and this picnic hamper…ah RT Retro Chick Goes to Glyndebourne http://t.co/DEE2Dqd8iL
Cassy Fry liked this on Facebook.
I looks like you had a grand time. The shoes are beautiful! I’m also pretty excited that a Betsy Hatter hair flower went to the opera 🙂 x
Karen James-welton liked this on Facebook.
What a fantastic day out!! Thank you for the wonderful tour, what a lovely story behind the origins behind the theatre and you took some wonderful pics … I feel like I toddled along too;). Your frock is glorious and those shoes – perfection! I’ve never been to the opera, it’s about time I did. But I do love the ballet. xo
Looks like a fabulous event!
Gorgeous! I love the opera but don’t get a chance to go very often. I really need to figure out a way to go more!
-Becca
Ladyface Blog
Morrigan Palmer Brown liked this on Facebook.
Caroline Seager liked this on Facebook.
I do love your outfits – looks like you had a fabulous time!!! I have been to the opera but it was Aida at Northampton Derngate – not QUITE the same and tbh I hated it lol……Im a ballet fan.ballet and picnics – now where are they?!
Ooo, this looks amazing! I’d love to go to something like this. I’ll have to put it on my to-do list – has all my favourite things!
Vintage fashion blogger @Retrochick_uk visits Glyndebourne to see #Falstaff, her first ever opera! http://t.co/VhPZiU7LZa
” I think the most anyone has ever built me out of love is a shoe rack.” That made me lol, haha. Same, but for me, it was a dresser.
This looks like such fun! I almost went to the theatre on Saturday, but no one could be bothered to deal with driving downtown and parking and blah blah. I’ve never been to the opera, but I’d like to go just to dress up and carry around little opera glasses/binoculars.
That picnic area looks beautiful, as do you!! Love your ensemble 🙂
Mabel
Life of Mabel
RT @glyndebourne: Vintage fashion blogger @Retrochick_uk visits Glyndebourne to see #Falstaff, her first ever opera! http://t.co/VhPZiU7LZa
@Retrochick_uk may I say that you look totally gorgeous?
RT @Retrochick_uk: New blog post. What I wore to the Opera…. http://t.co/T2UC47iVjP
Oh Gemma! What a neat event! Thats soooo my kinda thing. I love art! I can only imagine the fab picnics people laid out! Would you do it again? You look lovely! Liking the blonde hehe xox
Shazanna Karim liked this on Facebook.
You are GORGEOUS. That dress looks beautiful.
Wow, you look so glam (I always love teaming burgundy with black) – where did you get the bolero (sorry if that’s not the right term!)?
I went to see La Bohème in Italy when I was a teenager, the show was at night in a big outdoor amphitheatre, although nowhere near as glamorous as Glyndebourne (and the seats were hellishly uncomfortable!)
The bolero is from Kookai, but about 8 years ago now!
An open air amphitheatre sounds lovely though!
Glyndebourne is quite simply heaven! I am glad you enjoyed it but beware, once you get the taste for it, opera is highly addictive! The revelation came to me quite late in life when I realised that opera was not complicated to understand, that when you get down to it, they are (heresy alert!) just old musicals. However when it’s good, no other form of theatre comes close for power or magic. You are also quite right, it need not cost an arm and a leg, but to get the cheap seats you have to be organised, and strike the moment they are released on sale. I normally manage about 3 Glyndebourne visits a year, and always the cheap seats or standing tickets. They do great deals for you if you are under 30, and the touring opera in the autumn is another bargain, though you don’t get the whole Glyndebourne + picnic experience then.
I loved Falstaff too, no great memorable tunes, but great music nonetheless, and the funny stuff actually is funny, which is not always the case in a Shakespeare comedy (it’s Verdi’s take on “the Merry Wives of Windsor”). A lovely show.
Totally agree we have been going for 23 or more years I think well actually we went to the grand opening and even invited to the acoustic evening for before it
opened . We have seen some fab opera picnicked in the rain and sun but mostly eaten in the wonderful restaurant . Now we enjoy it much because we don’t have to entertain clients who do not enjoy anything other than eating and drinking. We are fortunate to be members so luck to have 4 tickets to 4 opera every year.
I used to buy my outfits at second hand shops and jaz them up with a scarf or beads.
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Clare
I’ve never been to the opera before :3 I do think it’s a very unique experience and therefore I feel like I should have been to one at least once, during my lifetime ^^ I really like your outfit, especially your handbag, it’s wonderful! 🙂
I would love to go to Glyndebourne! It looks and sounds fab! I actually go to the opera a lot, or at least six times a year since I’ve got seat (6 thursdays a year that is) in the Oslo opera. I’ve also been to the opera abroad, but never in the UK. You look great! Lovely outfit, and as always; love your hair!