page_title: Glyndebourne
section_title: The first theatre
hierarchical_section_title: Glyndebourne / The first theatre
caption_attribution_description: Organ inside Glyndebourne HouseGlyndebourne
context_page_description: Glyndebourne is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The house, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England, is thought to be about six hundred years old and listed at grade II.
context_section_description: As an annex to the organ room, the Christies built a fully equipped and up-to-date theatre with a 300-seat auditorium and an orchestra pit capable of holding a symphony orchestra. 
  Christie engaged conductor Fritz Busch as the first music director, Carl Ebert, the Intendant of Berlin's Städtische Oper as artistic director, and Rudolf Bing became general manager until 1949. All three men were exiles from Nazi Germany.
  After extensive rehearsals, the first six-week season opened on 28 May 1934 with a performance of Le nozze di Figaro followed by Così fan tutte.  Boyd Neel had conducted the first music heard in the renovated Glyndebourne opera house in 1934, in private performances, at John Christie's invitation.
  John Christie's original theatre was soon enlarged and improved many times after its initial construction.  As early as 1936 its capacity was increased to 433; by 1952 it held nearly 600, and finally, in 1977, it held 850 people.  In addition, a rehearsal hall was constructed.
  Productions were interrupted by the Second World War, during which time the house became an evacuation centre for children from London.  After 1945 the Festival slowly began again.  Until 1951, the entire burden of financing the opera festival was undertaken by John Christie himself, but, in 1952, the Glyndebourne Festival Society was formed to take over the financial management.  Christie's death in 1962 resulted in his son George (later Sir George) taking over, and additional changes and improvements to the theatre continued.
  Hill, Norman and Beard built the pipe organ in 1924, and it gradually expanded over the years. John Christie owned a considerable share in the company.  Currently, the organ is a gutted shell, the pipes having been donated to various churches for the construction of new organs after World War II. The organ originally contained 4 manuals and 46 stops, but this was eventually expanded to 106 stops, unusual for an English-built organ in having multiple diapason chorus ranks of pipes.
  A short semi-documentary film was made in 1955 entitled On Such a Night, featuring excerpts from that year's production of Le nozze di Figaro and with glimpses of John Christie, Vittorio Gui and Carl Ebert, interwoven with fictional story about an American going there for the first time.
caption: The organ room, 1 August 2006
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