It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good

Operatic squalls are not uncommon. Rossini depicts a passing storm in his overture to William Tell, Wagner conjures up a tempest at the start of Die Walküre, Verdi begins Otello in a gale, and there is a rough sea interlude in Britten’s Peter Grimes. Now, Glyndebourne Opera House has stirred up a tornado in a teacup.

Tilting at windmills

The old-fashioned windmill is a thing of beauty symbolic of a lost past. Its modern equivalent provokes considerable sound and fury, yet it has a quixotic charm of its own.