Backstage.

Now that the first season is under way and the pristine details of engineering and infrastructure are being overlaid by the practical clutter of music and theatre, how does it feel to live and work in the new Glyndebourne? 'It's a treat', says Richard Hudson, designer of Yevgeny Onyegin. 'Everyone really loves what they do here, they really care.'

The circular form of the building allows not only the green-room but also the dressing-rooms -- modestly but functionally furnished - to have wide windows overlooking the gardens. The new building also boasts ample backstage accommodation. All the sets for the season's repertoire may be kept either up in the flies or in the back and two side stages. The working areas of wingspace, scene-dock and sound-proofed rehearsal space cluster around the stage. The floorspace of the rehearsal stage has the same footprint as the stage itself, an obvious working advantage, and the backstage complex is easily accessed to the servicing demands of wardrobe and workrooms via a generous loading bay. On stage the huge cyclorama, flown as part of the Le nozze di Figaro set, is backed by an acoustic back wall which in its turn can lift to allow the audience a depth perspective of more than 120 feet, conjuring up visions of powerful design options.

The auditorium, with its almost ship-like bulkheads of curving wooden seating, has been designed to achieve the resonant and generous acoustics which have so delighted everyone at the trials. The demands of the lighting designer have been met with lighting rails and bars which are integral to the balconies of the circle and the upper circle. Discreet flaps within the balcony fronts allow cabling to run to lanterns which may be hung on bars built as part of the line of the seating. The great dome of the theatre also contains a central circular lighting rig which complements the proscenium lighting bridge. Watching Pat Collins focusing her rig for Figaro, the ease and flexibility of the system became clearly apparent.

The general consensus among both performers and backstage staff is that the new facilities were much better than the old. A passing protest came from a wardrobe assistant with an armful of boots who found the omnipresent firedoors with their push-button security systems hindering rather than facilitating a journey f rom workshop to wardrobe. (The armoury had the same problem with an armful of swords.) But such quibbles are mercifully rare.

The conductor Andrew Davis is fired with enthusiasm for his new empire. 'We had an acoustic test which was marvellous. We had got used to the sound of the old pit in Glyndebourne which we cope with, but every new season we had forgotten how difficult it was and the orchestra had to get used to playing there again. Now we have an acoustic which is remarkably generous for the orchestra - in fact the only thing that I'm nervous about is whether the orchestra won't sound almost too rich and too dominating. I think that the sound from the stage is also good, so that we finally have a real opera house, rather than the apotheosis of a village hall.'

What might be the effect on the performers of the horseshoe shaped auditorium with its 'human wallpaper' arrangement of seating enveloping pit and stage so closely? 'It's been suggested that when the house is full this might prove rather claustrophobic', says Davis, 'but in practice I think the audience will experience that pleasurably intens feeling when you're in a closely knit group of people who are all concentrating on one thing. What's so different about the auditorium is how it stacks up. In the old building everyone was on the floor, with a few people stuck up in the balcony and boxes, whereas here the majority of the audience is looking down on the stage.' Davis suggests that the form of the new auditorium will have an effect on the staging - We'll probably see fewer raked stages than we used to. In the old days of course you were designing something which was mostly going to be seen from floor level; you approach things rather differently when most of your audience is going to be seated upstairs'.

The rehearsal facilities are also much improved. According to Davis, 'I'm rehearsing Onyegin, and we've been working in the new rehearsal stage room which is wonderful. Technically it's much better equipped. The building has also been designed so that television can get in here very easily, so rather than do special television recordings at the end of the season in an empty house, we'll probably be able to send things out live - for example Figaro goes out live on the opening night. It might even make quite a good recording studio'.

The new building sails like a great ship under the billowing skies of the downs. The overall impression is of light and warmth and space. John Graham-Hall, rehearsing as Curzio in the opening production of Figaro, sums up the new Glyndebourne's virtues: 'What's astounding is that the place continues to have exactly the same feel; you go round the corner and find this great new thing - but it remains the same. To those of us who have worked here before it's like coming home'.