He made his Proms debut in 1976 and his opera debut in 1977 at the Glyndebourne Festival.

BBC: Sir Simon Rattle

But representatives from the National Theatre, Royal Opera House and Glyndebourne have disagreed.

BBC: Live opera 'not distracted' by cinema screenings

They assumed from his appearance, demeanour and multilingualism, and his enthusiasm for opera at Glyndebourne, that he was a citified European.

ECONOMIST: Michael von Clemm

Before then, Grandage will direct Evita on Broadway, followed by the Marriage of Figaro at Glyndebourne, and Red in Los Angeles.

BBC: Michael Grandage sets up production company

"Glyndebourne plays to virtually full houses and we can't meet audience demand through theatre performances alone, " he told the BBC News website.

BBC: Live opera 'not distracted' by cinema screenings

The technology is thoroughly tested, and has been proved successful by the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and by Covent Garden and Glyndebourne in England.

ECONOMIST: ��Ph��dre�� at the National Theatre

Michael Grandage's "Le Nozze di Figaro" is Glyndebourne's seventh production of the Mozart opera with which it opened in 1934, and the best of the many of those I've seen.

WSJ: England's Opera Spectaculars

That's because the soprano sang the role of Cleopatra when the David McVicar production premiered at England's Glyndebourne Festival in 2005 and performed it again when the staging traveled to the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2007.

WSJ: De Niese steps into Met 'Cesare' on short notice