Musicologist, translator and lecturer John Deathridge discusses musical threads in the Ring cycle, and offers advice on how to navigate the story. With musical extracts featuring Longborough's Alberich, the internationally celebrated baritone Mark Stone.

This was recorded live at the 2024 festival. Visit the Longborough website to see the presentation to enhance your listening experience!

Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at ⁠⁠⁠lfo.org.uk

Looking ahead to Longborough's 2025 season, which will include the UK premiere of Wahnfried - Avner Dorman's opera about the Wagner family - and a new production of Debussy's post-Wagnerian masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande, Longborough's Artistic Director Polly Graham talks about these works, and their relationship with the oeuvre of Richard Wagner. Polly is joined by conductor Justin Brown, and Ring cycle conducting fellow Harry Sever, who offers illustrations of the exquisite orchestral interludes from Pelléas.

Internationally acclaimed dramatic soprano Rachel Nicholls, who last appeared at Longborough in the celebrated 2022 production of Die tote Stadt, sings from Debussy's Proses lyriques, an excerpt from Dorman's opera Wahnfried, a song from Korngold's Abschiedslieder and the famous Mariettas Lautenlied from Die tote Stadt.

This was recorded live at the 2024 festival.

Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at ⁠⁠lfo.org.uk

In this episode we explore Götterdämmerung from the perspective of its heroine, Brünnhilde, with thoughts and musical excerpts from Professor Peter Franklin, conductor and pianist Justin Brown, and Longborough's own Brünnhilde Lee Bisset.

This was recorded at an event for Longborough members.

Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at ⁠lfo.org.uk

In this episode we celebrate the upcoming 2024 season at Longborough - a new production of La bohème in the centenary year of Puccini's death, alongside the culmination of our Ring cycle. 

With readings and music from some of our brilliant Emerging Artists, we also look ahead at the exciting plans for our 2025 programme, with Longborough's Artistic Director Polly Graham, Music Director Anthony Negus, Executive Director Emily Gottlieb and Chairman Andrew Mosely.

Participants include Sofia Kirwan-Baez (currently studying at the National Opera Studio and making her Longborough debut in 2024), prize-winning baritone Edward Jowle and soprano Fflur Wyn (making her Longborough debut as the Woodbird in our 2024 Ring), accompanied by Susie Allan.

This was recorded at an event for Longborough members, at Compton Verney.

Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at lfo.org.uk

Longborough Festival Opera: the first 30 years is a new book chronicling how a dream of an idea became bricks, mortar and sublime music.

In this recording of the book launch, author Richard Bratby talks to music historian Sophie Redfern about Martin and Lizzie Graham's remarkable achievement, and the story of opera at Longborough.

Internationally renowned tenor Mark Le Brocq reads from the book and performs Wagnerian excerpts, accompanied by Longborough's acclaimed Music Director Anthony Negus; plus special guest appearance by baritone Roderick Williams.

This event was recorded live at Chipping Campden's Cidermill Theatre.

Looking ahead to Longborough's 2023 production of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, music director Robert Howarth and lutenist Lynda Sayce discuss interpreting manuscripts from Monteverdi's era.

Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at LFO.org.uk

Looking ahead to Longborough's 2023 production of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Robert Howarth, Olivia Fuchs and tenor Tom Randle explore Orfeo's pivotal scenes and monologues as he journeys into the underworld to find Euridice.

Wagner fits within a German ecological tradition stretching from Von Humboldt through Haeckel and Himmler to the Greens. Can any of this be heard in the music itself? This talk will show you how.

This episode is a lecture by Professor Michael Spitzer, author of acclaimed book The Musical Human, with musical illustrations by Longborough's Ring cycle répétiteur Kelvin Lim, recorded at an event for Longborough members.

Longborough Festival Opera's 2023 season opens with Wagner's Götterdämmerung, part of a new Ring cycle conducted by eminent Wagnerian Anthony Negus. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at LFO.org.uk

In July 2022, Longborough Festival Opera features an exciting double bill performed by our Emerging Artists: Francesca Caccini's La liberazione di Ruggiero, paired with Freya Waley-Cohen's contemporary song cycle Spell Book.

In this episode, Longborough's artistic director Polly Graham speaks to the production's director Jenny Ogilvie about her plans, with musical extracts from pianist Clíodna Shanahan and countertenor Keith Pun.

This talk was recorded at an event for Longborough members. Thanks to Stuart Essenhigh on trumpet in the introduction. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at lfo.org.uk

Korngold's Die tote Stadt forms an exciting part of Longborough's summer 2022 festival. In this episode, Korngold experts Jessica Duchen and Michael Haas teach us more about this remarkable composer. With musical extracts from pianist Charles Matthews. 

This talk was recorded at an event for Longborough members. Thanks to Stuart Essenhigh on trumpet in the introduction. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at lfo.org.uk