The Longborough podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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, 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

In this episode, conductor Justin Brown and director Olivia Fuchs chat to music journalist Richard Bratby about this incredible work: Janácek's musical language; his parallels to Wagner; and why grown adults would want to see an opera about talking animals. Longborough Festival Opera's Emerging Artist production of The Cunning Little Vixen will now take place in 2021. 

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

In this episode, writer and librettist Sophie Rashbrook chats to historian Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and soprano Lee Bisset, who was set to have been Brünnhilde in Wagner's Die Walküre at Longborough in the postponed 2020 season. In their discussion they explore the roles and mythical origins of Wagner’s women. 

For further reading, see Eleanor's list in the Guardian of top 10 books about the Vikings. Thanks to Stuart Essenhigh on trumpet in the introduction. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at lfo.org.uk

In this episode, music journalist Richard Bratby chats to Longborough's Music Director Anthony Negus and bass-baritone Paul Carey Jones, who was scheduled to sing Wotan in Wagner's Die Walküre at Longborough in the postponed 2020 season. In their discussion they trace Wotan's journey through Wagner's Ring cycle.

Thanks to Stuart Essenhigh on trumpet in the introduction. You can hear Paul singing Wagner on his YouTube channel. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at lfo.org.uk

Welcome to the Longborough podcast. Artistic Director Polly Graham introduces Longborough Festival Opera, a 500-seat homegrown theatre in the Cotswolds. Our podcast series was born out of the Covid lockdown. We'll be welcoming lots of our friends from the world of opera and the arts, including singers, players, directors, conductors and more, for what will be some thought-provoking discussions. We hope you'll join us too.

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