Soprano wins prestigious award
Glyndebourne Festival Opera has recently announced that Natasha Jouhl is the winner of the 2009 John Christie Award. The prestigious award is given to help young artists fund their studies, through lessons, coaching or study abroad. In a recent highly publicised event at Glyndebourne, Natasha moved up from her role of First Woodnymph to sing the title role for Acts 2 and 3 of Rusalka, when the scheduled soprano fell into the orchestra pit. Miss Martinez luckily only sustained minor injuries and returned to sing the later performances.
The Glyndebourne Festival was founded in 1934 by John Christie and his wife, Audrey Mildmay; their grandson Gus is now Executive Chairman with David Pickard the General Director. Carl Ebert was the first Artistic Director and Fritz Busch Music Director. Vladimir Jurowski is the current Music Director. The Festival repertoire has expanded to include operas from the baroque to the contemporary, including seven of Glyndebourne’s own commissions and 13 British premieres. The opera house itself was rebuilt in 1994 and now seats 1,200. Glyndebourne on Tour was founded in 1968 taking productions to a wider audience and offering increased performance opportunities to young singers. Additionally, Glyndebourne’s education department has an enormous commitment to new opera and community projects; it currently hosts over 230 different activities each year. With 124 opera performances annually reaching over 140,000 people, Glyndebourne’s continued employment of inspirational directors and performers, and the ongoing drive to commission new work, now goes hand in hand with digital innovations to reach new audiences.
