The Longborough podcast

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

Longborough Festival Opera's Music Director Anthony Negus joins the pianist and musicologist Professor Kenneth Hamilton, as they discuss the surprising personal and musical relationships between Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Hosted by writer and librettist Sophie Rashbrook.

Thanks to Stuart Essenhigh on trumpet in the introduction. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at lfo.org.uk

In this episode, Longborough Festival Opera's Artistic Director Polly Graham joins the acclaimed librettist and opera director Sir David Pountney, who was in the midst of staging his own Ring cycle in Chicago when the pandemic first struck.

The subject of their discussion is comedy in the Ring cycle: where and how we can find humour inside this huge work of art, and how this deepens our understanding of the story. 

Thanks to Stuart Essenhigh on trumpet in the introduction. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at lfo.org.uk