Longborough Festival Opera

Brave and beautiful: Longborough’s Pelléas et Mélisande reviewed

5 July 2025 9:00 am

King Arkel, in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, is almost blind, and he rules over a kingdom of darkness. Debussy’s score…

Summer opera festivals have gone Wagner mad

14 June 2025 9:00 am

Another week, another Wagner production at a summer opera festival. This never used to happen. When John Christie launched Glyndebourne…

Thrilling: Garsington’s Queen of Spades reviewed

7 June 2025 9:00 am

Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades is one of those operas that under-promises on paper but over-delivers on stage. It’s hard…

The opera that wouldn’t die

18 June 2022 9:00 am

Richard Bratby on the resurrection of wunderkind Erich Korngold’s long-neglected masterpiece

There’s no better sonic hangover cure: New Year’s Day Concert reviewed

9 January 2021 9:00 am

The best moment in the Vienna Philharmonic’s annual New Year’s Day Concert comes after the end of the advertised programme.…

The miracle of Longborough – the company that broke the mould for summer opera

8 June 2019 9:00 am

At Longborough Festival Opera, Richard Wagner is on the roof. Literally: his statue stands on top of the little pink…

Thrilling energy & humour from Longborough Festival Opera: Ariadne auf Naxos reviewed

28 July 2018 9:00 am

‘They’ve dined well, they’ve drunk their fill, their brains are dull and slow. They’ll sit snoozing in the dark until…

A grim and impoverished place: Royal Opera’s new Lohengrin

Longborough continues to be a refuge for British Wagnerians fleeing idiotic productions

16 June 2018 9:00 am

Longborough Festival Opera, refuge for British Wagnerians fleeing unidiomatic musical performances and idiotically irrelevant and insulting productions, has rounded off…

New kid on the block

22 July 2017 9:00 am

The new Grange Park Opera at Horsley is amazing, as everyone who visits it must agree. In less than a…

The finest Tristan since Siegfried Jerusalem

27 June 2015 9:00 am

Which of Wagner’s mature dramas is the most challenging, for performers and spectators? The one you’re seeing at the moment,…