Sunday 8 June is the date for the first of this year's Glyndebourne not-quite-livestreams.
Der Rosenkavalier can be seen on the Glyndebourne and Daily Telegraph websites (free), and in cinemas (£££). The live show begins at 3.20pm but the streaming doesn't start until 4.30pm so that home audiences are spared most of the extended dinner interval.
Public booking for Glyndebourne opens on 10 March.
If you want to jump the queues, tomorrow's Daily Telegraph (1 March) contains a special code that will allow you to book from 8am on Saturday 1 March.
I will print more details here as soon as I know them. However I'm not planning to get up at the crack of dawn, and I assume the Telegraph won't post the code online, so your best bets will be (a) check Twitter before 8am or (b) suck it up, go out, and buy a paper.
*UPDATE* reader Michael points out the code is 10578.
A new report suggests Glyndebourne contributes more than £16 million a year to the local economy.
Most of this comes from ticket buyers, the report says, though some of the figures don't make perfect sense. The 98,000 festival visitors in 2013 spent more than £11 million at hotels, restaurants, shops and attractions - or £112 per person on average. However another statistic indicates that the 35% of visitors who stayed the night laid out an average of £81 per day. Guests who stayed the night spent less on average than those who didn't? Possible, but odd.
A further £3m goes in wages to Glyndebourne's employees - a more reliable figure since it's easier to measure. The Festival employs 150 direct staff all year round, 600 performing company and production staff and 1,500 artists and singers. In addition, £1.3m is paid to various local suppliers.
The report was commissioned by Glyndebourne and East Sussex County Council, with additional funding from Arts Council England and the East Sussex Arts Partnership, and was based on 3,367 survey responses.
Back in 2012, I looked at whether various classical venues' membership schemes were worth the money. Since then the environment has changed. Advance sales have declined. Last-minute discounting is now commonplace. The value of priority booking is no longer what it was.
Venues will start announcing their 2014-15 plans in January. So is it still worth forking out £40-£1,000 for membership privileges?
It may be a bit chilly for a picnic, but Glyndebourne is still open for business.
Thanks to a special offer from the Guardian, seats for Fiona Shaw's highly-praised The Rape of Lucretia are just £30 (down from £61). The offer is valid for the 28 November show only.
Slip into your mink-lined undercrackers and book on the Glyndebourne website using the promotional code 10377.
German channel ARD is streaming tonight's Der fliegende Holländer from Bayreuth, with a short delay. The broadcast begins at 22.15 CET, which is 9.15pm in the UK.
To my great surprise, at the time of writing, I am able to watch ARD online from the UK.
The Bayreuth programme may end up being blocked in the UK for rights reasons as they usually do, but it's worth a try. If it disappears, you can still listen on the radio.
Warm up with the Hippolyte et Aricie live stream from Glyndebourne at 6.15pm (and on demand afterwards).
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