The Peter Sellars production of Idomeneo was not well received when it opened at Glyndebourne earlier in the summer. While many ideas seemed to be carried forward from the earlier Theodora, including the arm-waving chorus, that work had the great advantage of not being a familiar and much-loved masterpiece. There seemed an inappropriate level of oversimplification in what is a complex plot, and a reliance on what seemed now like clichés. In Sussex, every note of the score had been played, but for the tour several cuts were made, and Arbace also lost both his arias.
The greatest difficulty for some audience members was the fact that the Edinburgh Festival the previous year had mounted a wonderful concert performance under Mackerras with a superb cast. The most successful element of this Glyndebourne enterprise was the conducting of Kenneth Montgomery, with excellent performances drawn from chorus and orchestra.
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