The audience at Glyndebourne Opera was clapping last week even before the curtain rose on Le Nozze di Figaro. Gus Christie, the event's executive chairman, strode on stage to announce the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate Sir Rudolf Bing, the Viennese-born Jew thrown out of his theatre work in Berlin by the Nazis and invited to Britain in 1934 to become the pioneering country house opera's first general manager.

The plaque was a gift of the Association of Jewish Refugees. Mr Christie noted the role of Sir Rudolf, along with Mr Christie's grandmother Audrey Mildmay, in also creating the Edinburgh Festival as an outlet for Glyndebourne before his departure for America.