Glyndebourne is a country house and opera venue near Glynde, established as a festival by John Christie and his wife, the soprano Audrey Mildmay, who staged the first season in 1934 in a 300-seat theatre built onto their home. The Christie family has run Glyndebourne ever since, with George Christie taking over in 1962 and his son Gus becoming executive chairman in 2000. The original theatre was rebuilt in 1994 as a 1,200-seat opera house, where Glyndebourne now stages over 120 performances a year to around 150,000 visitors, funded through ticket sales and private donations rather than public subsidy. The festival runs a summer season each year alongside a touring autumn programme, presenting opera in the grounds of the roughly 600-year-old, Grade II-listed house. As an independent charitable trust rather than a subsidised or council-run venue, Glyndebourne remains one of the few opera companies of its scale still operated as a single, family-led institution.
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