The Glyndebourne Émigrés

Nils Grosch, Professor of Musicology at the University of Salzburg, Austria, will give a talk to mark the publication by Clemson University Press (USA) and Liverpool University Press of The Glyndebourne Émigrés: Operatic Mobilities in Southern England, 1934-1940, an anthology of essays edited by Prof. Grosch and Beth Snyder and the first book to explore in depth the important but hitherto under-examined role played by the emigrés in the early years of Glyndebourne Opera.

It remains a little-known fact that despite the popular perception of Glyndebourne as representing the quintessence of Englishness, it would almost certainly never have come into existence had it not been for the involvement of refugees from Nazi Europe – most notably Artistic Directors Fritz Busch and Carl Ebert, and General Manager, Rudolph Bing, but also conductor Hans Oppenheim, singers Irene Eisinger and Ina Souez, and répétiteur Jani Strasser, among others.

In its first years of existence, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera set out to internationalize English opera culture, both by attracting international artists and leading proponents of a new concept of opera production and by giving émigrés the chance to further hone skills developed in Central Europe and beyond.

Image: book cover (detail)

To book, click here.