Autumn Season 2025 announced
Opera, concerts and more
Autumn Season 2025 will include three mainstage operas (including one world premiere) and a series of seasonal concerts.
Stephen Langridge, Artistic Director of Glyndebourne, said: ‘Autumn at Glyndebourne is a time of discovery. That might mean seeing your first ever opera, and we keep prices as low as we can to entice people to give it a try. The 2024 Autumn Season brought over 30,000 people to Glyndebourne, 26% of them coming for the first time, so we are happy that the approach appears to be working. From children’s participation projects to the casting of young singers, Glyndebourne aims to nurture and develop the stars of tomorrow: Autumn offers audiences a chance to discover talented artists on the cusp of international careers.’
Already announced as part of the 2025 Autumn Season is the world premiere of an adaptation of Edith Nesbit’s classic novel, The Railway Children, a collaboration between composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Rachael Hewer. The production will be directed by Glyndebourne’s Artistic Director Stephen Langridge and conducted by British conductor Chloe Rooke.
The opera offers a contemporary take on the familiar story, moving it from its original Edwardian setting into the Cold War era and expanding on the book’s hints of espionage to focus on the quest of the children’s mother to uncover the truth about the mysterious arrest and imprisonment of the father. It will be the first Mark-Anthony Turnage work to be performed at Glyndebourne. Two dedicated Performances for Schools of The Railway Children will bring thousands of local children and young people to the venue to experience the thrill of live opera.
The Railway Children is one of three mainstage operas in Glyndebourne’s 2025 Autumn Season alongside revivals of Floris Visser’s powerful 2022 production of La bohème (conducted by Adam Hickox) and Sir Peter Hall’s classic 1981 staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (conducted by Bertie Baigent). Considered by many to be the definitive production of Britten’s bewitching opera, A Midsummer Night’s Dream will also be given a dedicated Performance for Schools. At the end of the Autumn Season, audiences can enjoy concert performances of Handel’s Messiah and the return of the popular Glyndebourne Christmas Concert.
Glyndebourne’s Autumn Season provides a platform for some of the most exciting up-and-coming artists in opera. In 2025 that includes, among others, soprano Aida Pascu (Young Artist of the Year at the 2024 International Classical Music Awards), baritone Aksel Daveyan (second prize winner at the Queen Sonja Singing Competition 2023), soprano Camilla Harris (described as “a talent to be reckoned with” by Opera magazine), soprano Jennifer France (winner of the 2018 Critics’ Circle Emerging Talent Award), mezzo-soprano Stephanie Wake-Edwards (who represented England in the 2021 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition) and soprano Alexandra Lowe (whose debut album was shortlisted at the 2024 BBC Music Awards).
Mainstage performances are one part of Glyndebourne’s Autumn Season alongside initiatives and projects to share opera with the local community. That includes Performances for Schools at Glyndebourne, work in schools to support singing and musical composition in the classroom and the One Voice Festival of Singing (in partnership with Create Music), which sees schoolchildren experience the thrill of singing on stage with the Glyndebourne Chorus.
Glyndebourne’s 2025 Autumn Season runs from 11 October to 14 December 2025 with more than 32,000 tickets available. Public booking will open next spring.