Peter Ebert

Peter Ebert (born 6 April 1918, Frankfurt am Main, Germany - d. 25 December 2012, Sussex, England) was a German opera director. Son of noted German director Carl Ebert who left Nazi Germany in 1934 with his son and moved to England, he was best known for his work with Glyndebourne Opera and the Scottish Opera where he staged over 50 productions from 1963 to 1980 and which brought him great success.

Peter Ebert was the son of Charles, later Carl, Ebert and Cissi (Lucie Frederike Karoline (née Splisgarth), who was German. Carl was the outcome of a romantic liaison of a Polish count and an Irish American music student. Peter was therefore half German. Peter`s parents divorced when he was six, both parties remarrying and staying on excellent terms. Due to the separation, his early years of schooling were chequered, so he was finally sent to one of Kurt Hahn`s boarding schools in Germany.

In 1933 Carl was invited by the Nazis to take charge of the theatre scene in Berlin, but in a strong political gesture he chose to leave Germany and the family settled in Switzerland. Peter was given the choice of staying or leaving Germany and chose to leave. He was one of the 13 boys to make up the first intake of the new Gordonstoun School under the headmastership of the also emigrated Kurt Hahn.

With Carls friend the conductor, Fritz Busch who became the first music director of this new company, Carl had been asked by John Christie to take part in the founding of the Glyndebourne Opera. In 1934 at age 16, Peter visited Glyndebourne (where Carl was directing the operas for the first season) on his way to his boarding school in Scotland and it inspired a lasting love of England and its way of life and especially of Glyndebourne.

The pre-war seasons where sensational as Carl brought revolutionary ideas about production to England. Examples of his approach included the requirement that singers should act, and that the music was to be the guide, with the seamless whole being an interpretation of the music. This approach was well received by critics.

After two years at Gordonstoun, Peter spent six months apprenticed to a private bank, but then moved to Dartington Hall in Devonshire, where the Elmhirsts were carrying out a major cultural experiment. Ebert's stepfather, Hans Oppenheim, was running the Music School there, having also left Germany. So Peter joined his mother and "Oppi" there to study film making and forestry.

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