Glyndebourne Opera Festival Celebrates Its Own Royal Couple

Love birds: Gus Christie and Danielle de Niese in the manor. (Photo: Dan Bum Forti/The Telegraph)

"They are stars in their own opera. A Donizetti, perhaps. Some sort of teasing pact seems to have been agreed between them: she won’t interrupt when he is trying to make a point. But expecting Danni de Niese to moderate her enthusiasm is like expecting water to run uphill. As a kittenish all-singing-all-dancing Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, she took Glyndebourne by storm in 2005. Then she laid siege to the affections of its owner as he watched her from the wings. After a courtship spanning several cities, wherever in the world she was singing, they married in 2009. Their love story has become as much a part of the Glyndebourne legend as that of his grandfather, John Christie, who built the first opera house in 1934 for his beautiful Canadian wife, the soprano Audrey Mildmay. England’s Taj Mahal, Danni calls it. The idea that another soprano might take up residence once seemed fanciful but 'history has repeated itself,' Danni says." [Source]