In the five years following the war, 1945-1950, there was relative inactivity at Glyndebourne simply because there was no money. John Christie had spent more than £100,000 of his personal fortune on his enterprise, and had had to call a halt. It was not, however, a period of total inertia. In 1947 Glyndebourne founded the Edinburgh Festival which was subsidised by the City of Edinburgh and, with their financial support, Glyndebourne could afford to present new productions such as Un ballo in maschera and Ariadne auf Naxos as well as the more familiar Mozart repertoire. In addition Glyndebourne itself hosted the world premières for Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia in 1946 and Albert Herring in 1947.
In 1950, John Christie was helped by an outside contribution for the first time at Glyndebourne. This was the first of many guarantees by British industrial concerns which in the course of two or three years were to help relieve him entirely of the personal financial burden of maintaining the Opera Festival. 1951 saw the audience come to the rescue with the formation of the Glyndebourne Festival Society, the object of which was to secure annual financial support by way of a subscription scheme for each Festival. The following year, the first Glyndebourne Festival Programme Book was published, and two years later in 1954, the Glyndebourne Arts Trust was formed to ensure the future of the company by the establishment of an endowment to maintain and improve the amenities. By these means the continuity of Glyndebourne, its principles and practice were ensured. The deaths of Fritz Busch in 1951, Audrey Mildmay in 1953, John Christie in 1962, and the gradual retirement of Carl Ebert between 1959 and 1964, left large gaps in the artistic and personal life of Glyndebourne; but the influence and example of these four figures has not diminished with the years.
New generations