Hall Resignation Ends Glyndebourne Conflict : Music: He was among advocates of classic opera pitted against company members willing to experiment.

Sir Peter Hall’s weekend resignation as artistic director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera has finally ended the bitter backstage bickering that has dominated conversation among Britain’s opera followers all summer.

Sources close to the company say advocates of classic opera, including Hall, were pitted against those in the company willing to experiment with new works and radical re-staging of traditional operas.

A crisis came in May with a highly unconventional Glyndebourne production of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflote,” from Peter Sellars, the director of stage and the Los Angeles Festival.

Sellars, 32, cut all the opera’s original spoken dialogue, and set it in contemporary times--at an L.A. freeway interchange--with a cast of characters that included beachboys. Reviews were mixed. For the first time in the memory of Glyndebourne, a sedate but prestigious festival held in the grounds of a magnificent country house, sections of the audience booed.

Hall, 59, complained bitterly that he had not been consulted about Sellars’ production. He said he discovered the decision to omit dialogue two days before opening night.

He has been Glyndebourne’s artistic director since 1984, and has directed 16 operas there since 1970--including traditional but acclaimed productions of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro,” “Don Giovanni” and “Cosi fan Tutte.”

One of the preeminent names in British performing arts, Hall founded the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1960, and succeeded Sir Laurence Olivier as director of Britain’s National Theatre in 1973, a post he held for 15 years. He has now formed his own production company, and before the controversy had planned to quit Glyndebourne after the 1991 season.

Hall has pulled back from many of his other opera commitments. The Los Angeles Music Center Opera announced Monday that Hall was replaced by David Pountney as director of “Elektra” “in order to devote all his energies to his new theater company.”

In his statement, Hall said: “Glyndebourne failed to consult me on an important artistic matter for which I am seen to be partially publicly responsible.”

He had tendered his resignation June 11, and was only making it public now to correct “erroneous reports.”

“I was not told that all the dialogue had been cut from (the production) until two days before the opening night, and then only in passing. I believe that as artistic director of Glyndebourne, I should have been party to this crucial decision which changed the structure, meaning and rhythm of the work, and is as fundamental as re-orchestrating the music.”

Hall said of Sellars: “I have admired (his) work in the past and two years ago readily endorsed the idea that he should direct ‘Die Zauberflote.’ I did not finally like the production, but that is no reason to resign or fail to support an agreed experiment.

“Not to be consulted on so fundamental as matter as the late removal of dialogue, however, shows that Glyndebourne now attaches little importance to my artistic opinion. I find myself unable to be part of an opera house that puts me in the position of endorsing something I knew nothing about.”

Hall is now directing a theatrical production for the Chichester Festival and was not available to comment. But he stressed he did not regret appointing Sellars. “I’m particularly concerned, having spent my life protecting people who want to do nutty things, that it might be thought I’m in any way hostile to (him),” he told the London Sunday Telegraph.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Sellars said nothing passed directly between the two protagonists: “We’re very friendly. I’ve known him for quite a while and he’s always been very generous. When the production opened with giant controversy, he defended it.

“I gather that Peter had actually wanted to resign for some time, and if this came to hand more readily than other excuses, fine. I suspect he may not be replaced. From what I understand, it’s a position that has come to be irrelevant, which seems to be the basis of his complaint.”

Hall has successfully straddled the worlds of theater and opera. After leaving the National Theatre, he formed his own Peter Hall Company last year and promptly staged two hits which made the transatlantic jump to Broadway: “Orpheus Descending” with Vanessa Redgrave and “The Merchant of Venice” with Dustin Hoffman. Ibsen’s “Wild Duck” is now playing in London’s West End to good reviews and audiences.

In an interview earlier this year with Times theater writer Sylvie Drake, Hall said: “If somebody said you can’t do both (opera and theater) . . . I would do theater. But I would do it with a great pang. . . . Everything about my life is that I’ve been able to go from opera to theater and back again. It’s like going from one mistress to another. It’s having two. I do love that.”

With the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, he staged his “Salome” in 1986 (remounted in 1989) and “Marriage of Figaro” earlier this year.

Ironically, the internal wrangling at Glyndebourne became public only days after Hall gave a candid and widely discussed interview to BBC radio, in which he admitted being tough and bullying. “I think some people think I’m terribly thick-skinned, arrogant, self-contained and not at all easily hurt,” he added.

“I am, my doctor tells me, an adrenaline addict. My system needs . . . and produces a lot of adrenalin, therefore I love stress.” He added his workaholic lifestyle had contributed to the end of his three marriages, one to actress Leslie Caron, and another to American soprano Maria Ewing.

Despite the controversy over Hall’s departure, Sellars’ relationship with Glyndebourne remains sound. He is set to direct another controversial opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer” by American minimalist composer John Adams, which deals with the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking. And his “Zauberflote” will be performed by Glyndebourne’s touring company this fall, and will return to the festival next year.

“I was extremely flattered that a little thing of mine would be at the center of such a brouhaha,” Sellars said. “It’s ironic, because this (“Die Zauberflote”) is the sweetest possible thing, all about brotherly love, things that nobody could possibly object to.”

Times staff writer John Henken contributed to this article.