Early Twentieth-Century Festival Cultures

In the first half of the twentieth century, different models of festival theatre were produced to showcase and nourish varied – and often divided – notions of culture and theatre in the period. On the one hand, festival cultures emerged that emphasised community-oriented performances and aimed for mass audiences. The early years of the twentieth century coincided with the rise of modern pageantry: episodic performances combining drama, procession and dance often occurring periodically in small towns to depict and celebrate a region’s history with the involvement of local communities. Contrastingly, the widening of cultural tourism in the nineteenth century led to the development of other more exclusive festivals imitating European models such as those in Bayreuth and Salzburg. Festivals in Malvern and Glyndebourne were not established to attract local and mass audiences. Instead, they accommodated visiting metropolitan elites able to afford the expenses involved in travelling to the festival’s location and interested in the diet of high culture on offer. This chapter will explore these contrasting models – ‘popular’ and ‘elite’– through their influences, practice and programming.