Longborough Opera Festival 2012, Götterdämmerung: It only begins "when the fat lady sings"

"Brunnhilde at Longborough may have been awoken by Siegfried as Alywn Mellor but she shall redeem the world as..."

Inside LFO's  Opera House

Longborough Festival Opera (LFO) - also known as "the UKs Bayreuth" has announced its 2012 season. It should come as little surprise that 2012 will feature the final part of the Ring - given that the 2013 season will consist of the entire Ring Cycle - but Wagner is not all that they produce

Next season will also include productions of  Wagner's favourite Mozart opera, The Magic Flute,  and  Janáček's Katya Kabanova.

And what of Götterdämmerung? As you know, they normally only announce three performances of their Ring Cycle operas (a forth was added late this  year only due to high ticket demand) however for 2012 they have begun by announcing 4 performances - dates below. Although, given the popularity of Gotterdammerung perhaps this should come as little surprise. And when one adds the sort of reviews Siegfried earned...

Alas, there is no information from LFO about casting - except to confirm the fine Anthony Negus will continue  to conduct. We can only hope that Daniel Brenna will return as Siegfried - given the critical acclaim his performance received this season. And equally Nicholas Folwells’, wonderfully menacing Alberich - although none of this is confirmed on LFO's website. But who will sing "the fat lady"?.

Rachel Nicholls: Redeeming the world?

Longborough's Brünnhilde of  previous years will not be available in 2013. Instead,  Alywn Mellor will be Brünnhilde in Seattle's Ring Cycle that year. 2012 is  looking busy also, as she will be - among other roles - Opera North's Sieglinde in their ongoing Ring Cycle. So, who could possibly take over as LFOs Brunnhilde - especially given their  ability to put together such fine casts and find future international Wagnerians?

Well a little bird (although not of the forest variety) tells me that the "fat lady" for 2012 will be a soprano of whom the The Sunday Times described, only a few years ago, as “a future Brünnhilde"; someone who made her ROH debute  in Parsifal; someone who is presently singing as Sieglinde alongside the RHO's own 2012 Brunnhilde (Susan Bullock. And talk of synchronisity) at the St Endellion Festival and someone who is presently studying with that Wagnerian legend Dame Anne Evans.

Brunnhilde at Longborough may have been awoken by Siegfried as Alywn Mellor but she shall redeem the world as Rachel Nicholls. More about Rachel shortly.

  Rachel Nicholls: Handel: Orlando - Se mi rivolgo al prato

So, what are the dates for LFO's 2012 season? Glad you asked:


The Magic FluteWolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Sung in Italian with English surtitles
16, 18, 19, 24, 25 June 2012
CONDUCTOR Gianluca Marciano
DIRECTOR Jenny Miller

Katya KabanovaLeoš Janáček

Sung in English
26, 27, 29, 30 June 2012
CONDUCTOR Jonathan Lyness
DIRECTOR Richard Studer


Götterdämmerung
Richard Wagner

Sung in German with English surtitles
17, 19, 22, 24 July 2012

CONDUCTOR Anthony Negus
DIRECTOR Alan Privett


More information as I get it. 

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A None Review: Siegfried Longborough (LFO) 2011

"Friend Seidl tells us about the performance of Siegfried in Munich, which to judge by his report, must have been thoroughly bad - they have gone out of their way it seems to do everything differently from Bayreuth. "I don't want to hear a word about it." R (Wagner) exclaims, and "What a curious fate these works have had" Cosima Wagner: Diaries - June 17 1878 (Trans: Geoffrey Skelton)

Longborough, Siegfried 23/07/11:

Going to the opera can be a traumatic experience - as visitors to Bayreuth's new  Tannhäuser production  have discovered this week.One can never can be sure before hand what sort of production to expect.  For those going to Longborough's Siegfried it is fairly safe to say they can expect a production that sits firmly in the mould of the neo-traditional Ring staging, verging on the traditional.  Alan Privett’s direction, and Kjell Torriset’s designs, allow Wagner’s music; the wonderful Negus and his orchestra; and the cast to tell this story – for this is a collaborative event. And it is also the story that Wagner wrote - not one imposed upon it by yet another opera director that feels that they know what it is all about , (or in many cases what they feel it should have been about). Now, this is not to say that the Ring is nothing more than a “fairy tale” – for it certainly is not – but, as I have said, Wagner wanted the audience to come to it’s true meaning without guidance – assuming of course by the end even he was still aware of it’s true meaning. As Wagner said himself, “I shall within these four evenings succeed in artistically conveying my purpose to the emotional -- not the critical -- understanding of the spectators.”  Myths and fairy tales are always about more than what they appear on the surface.  If they have a purpose other than to entertain, it is to “teach” us lessons, express our own inner desires and fears, etc. Within their pages – should we wish to look – they encompass the whole of human experience. But as I repeat constantly, we are all very different and how we perceive these lessons – and indeed what knowledge we take - is an individual processing event.  The point of myth and fairytales is not to impose a lesson but to allow the listener to acquire  knowledge on their own, and sometimes that knowledge may be outside of normal reasoning processes. This is what Privett seems to allow.

Using limited resources and space (compared to the MET or ROH for example) Alan Privett and Kjell Torriset emphasis the dreamlike quality of the ring – especially up to Brunnhilde’s awakening where Siegfried reaches maturity. Until this point, much of the stage is only partly lit (which has the effect on occasion of making things seem claustrophobic. I am still unsure whether this is deliberate or accidental). Shadows dominate – as they can do in darkest of dreams and the furthest reaches of consciousness. In act two for example, rope netting hangs across the front of the stage and until Siegfried arrives it stays this way (although occasionally being partly moved aside).  While this may be to simply emphasis the fact that we are in a forest with a dense growth obscuring our view it equally tends – at least to me – to emphasis the dream/myth like quality of what is taking place – especially at the beginning of this act where the only communication is between purely mythical constructs: dragons, gods, dwarfs and even the very forest itself. We are seeing things through the veil of myth perhaps? Possibly, it is certain that the forest itself in myth is a metaphor.

It is only in the final act that full use of light and the full area of the stage itself are used – in a manner reminiscent of the earliest “Wagner Brothers” New Bayreuth productions (there is even a small disk in the middle of the stage although this is not used in the same way as it was at Bayreuth). Siegfried has now fully awoken from his boyhood, he stands in the “light” suddenly he is no longer purely part of myth and legend but he is now making a new legend.  Indeed, we shall find in the next opera how greatly what he – and ultimately Brunnhilde – have done to begin to deconstruct the old myths and ultimately destroy them – although they are still not truly free of the Norn’s ever watchful gaze.

Ever present throughout the productions are the three silent Norns of Suzanne Firth. They have had a mixed reaction from the reviewers with only one, Nicholas Wroe at the Guardian, being highly enamored with them. I have to say that I do become nervous whenever I find extra members added to the cast (mimes, dancers or whatever) a la Grange Parks’ Tristan (Sorry Grange Park – I loved the production except for that – and the cardboard cutouts of course – see here). However,  at Longborough they worked remarkably well. Not only do they add to the staging but they  are without doubt central to its success – and hence I discuss them here within the context of the production design rather than with the cast. Ever present, yet not obtrusively so, they have multiple functions:  First they manage lighting (wonderfully), effects and scenery change. Second, they help remind us of an important part of the Ring: from the moment Alberich meets the Rheinmaidens every character's future is set -  with the exception, in part, of Siegfried and certainly Brunnhilde. The wheel of destiny is set in motion and no-one – even Erda, as we discover in Siegfried – can do anything to stop it. In Die Walkure, when Wotan tries to bring about Siegmund’s “free will” recovery of the ring, Freya points out that this has been manipulated by Wotan – Siegmund and Sieglinde have no more free will than the gods. Everything is predicted, everything is known.  The Norns in this production remind us of this and in a real sense become both the storytellers and observers they really are – or at least they will be until Gotterdammerung.   But thanks to Suzanne Firth’s wonderfully unobtrusive choreography they never dominate.  On a technical level, it is also difficult to see how Guy Hoare could have achieved some of the lighting effects he did without them or how many of Wagner’s demanding scene changes could have occurred.

This of course is not to say that the production is  without faults – even if they are minor. Up to the wonderfully realized  last act there can be a certain “rough around the edges” feel to some parts of the set – although this is not anywhere near  enough to distract from the opera as a whole. But one feels that this will easily be rectified as the season continues and will certainly be resolved for the full cycle in 2013. This is after all a massive drain on any opera house (SO’s ring cycle nearly bankrupted the company for example and Bayreuth has been bankrupted by the Ring at least once in its history).  The program contains the set designs for Siegfried and it is clear from these exactly what needs to be done to turn this into a highly attractive set indeed.  If I was to make one recommendation it would be that the first act is slightly cluttered and the removal of the odd extra bit of scenery would help greatly – but then this is only my opinion of course. Wagner needed to build an opera house to stage the Ring – and to call on the monetary resources of the royal families of Europe. To do what the Grahams have done at Longborough is extraordinary.

The costuming is in keeping with a traditional Ring staging – Brunnhilde even has a breastplate!  The only thing not expected is Mime’s costume which looks like it has come from a Mad Max movie. And yet, within the industrial setting of act one it works well. Siegfried may well be born of the natural world so loved by the Romantics – and his costuming suggests this – Mime is clearly of the industrial revolution – whose oppressiveness was so hated by the Romantics and Wagner especially.

Cast:

We only really get to be with the “real” Mime once in the entire opera, right at the beginning of the first act, when he is alone. Once again trying to forge a sword  that Siegfried will not break within moments. For the rest of the opera we see  and hear only the “public” face of Mime, the one who manipulates Siegfried and has been doing so all of his life.  The other Mime that we see - even when talking to Wotan in some respects – is the public Mime ,the frankly rather whiney, “caring”,  hard done by Mime (or so he pretends). As Siegfried mocks, cruelly, “… that shuffling and slinking, those eyelids blinking…”. Of course all of this is part of Mimes manipulation. I think for us to believe that Mime has managed to manipulate even the frankly dumb Siegfried, for his whole life, we must believe that the “real” Mime is able to do this. This is reflected in the opening of the ring and requires a good actor – both vocally and physically – to reflect this. Colin Judson manages to achieve this well and undergoes the transformation to the public Mime with skill – both vocally and physically. He is a great actor and his previous experience of this role is easy to see. Someone else has said this already, but it is indeed sad to see him go in act 2. Mime, if he is convincingly performed,  can “grow on you” despite his inherent evil. It does take a good performer to make this take place and Colin Judson is indeed such a performer and a fine singer also.

Was Wagner really thinking with any logic when he created and wrote for Siegfried?  Let us think about the demands for a moment. The role requires a heroic tenor able to sing for nearly five hours, act convincingly – and with great physicality – sound,  look and act for two and a half acts like an overgrown schoolboy, who then transforms in act 3 into a man  - and indeed the ultimate hero . Who must after hours of hard singing, sing alongside a soprano who has had a good sleep for the rest of the opera! It is for this reason that Siegfried is so difficult to cast in live performance - as so many reviews, listening to live broadcasts or going to the opera will tell you.  So, how is it that Longborough have managed to find one of the most amazing Siegfried’s in modern opera history? A tenor no one – including me – had ever heard of? A tenor who despite excellent previous reviews is unrecorded – anywhere?  A tenor who reminded one reviewer , partly, of Melchior (and there are similarities – he certainly shares the energy ,  heroism and vocal expressiveness and power of a young Melchior  - if, at the moment, he is  lighter of tone for what perhaps would be considered a typical  Wagnerian heldentenor).  Indeed, I have searched a rather extensive library of Wagner recordings here in an attempt to find anyone like him – and have had to go back to early 20 century recordings to find anything even close.  He  sings and acts with such energy that I thought in the beginning he was making the classic mistake of not pacing himself – but no. He maintained the same lyricism and energy (and excellent German) right through to the last act – only once or twice showing signs of tiredness when facing the fully refreshed – and always wonderful - Mellor. And what a joy to see a modern Siegfried so obviously enjoying himself  (even in the last act), able to act and manage to make us believe, both psychologically and vocally, the change in Siegfried in act three!  He even somehow manages to make Siegfried likable, or at least understandable – no easy task. Wherever you get the chance,  see this young man. 

Yesterday, Domingo announced his fight against classical music piracy – proven by falling record sales. Perhaps the classical recording industry would not be facing falling sales if they recorded more unknowns like Brenna instead of the same reworked  CDs by the same limited number of  – but well known – performers. And BBC Radio 3? Where were you? Would it really have been that much bother and cost to have recorded and broadcast this performance?  Do we really need to hear another Boheme from the ROH or Butterfly from the MET featuring more over exposed “stars”?

Phillip Joll is of course something of a legend to British Wagnerians and what a joy it was to see him back on form as Wotan – and much more impressive vocally than the last time I saw him a few years ago. Wotan is a role that he could no doubt do in his sleep and yet the energy,  gravitas and nobility that he brought to the wanderer was a joy. His encounter with Mime was excellently done. With Alberich in act 2 – the person responsible for so many of his problems – it was like two old enemies meeting again and handled wonderfully to construct a believable relationship. This was helped greatly by Nicholas Folwell’s fine Alberich – an Alberich that still has not learned anything even when confronted by Joll’s Wotan – a Wotan who has clearly grown to become wiser and more world weary than when they last met. At curtain call he seemed genuinely surprised with the rapturous greeting that met him – he should not have been.

I have already mentioned Nicholas Folwells fine Alberich. He is a suitable and menacing Alberich, convincingly sung and acted. I have always had a soft spot for Alberich and Folwell is believably both menacing and rather tragic a figure.

Julian Close makes his entry as Fafner on a piece of moving scaffolding (those poor Norns). It reminded me a little of the cranes that suspended so many of the performers at the Valencia Ring. Did it work? All companies struggle with the Dragon – even the METs from ’89. With all of its budget, Fafner  looked like an escaped monster from a 70’s TV science fiction series. Let me put it this way, I often find myself suppressing a giggle when yet another silly dragon appears on stage – I didn’t need to do that this time. Julian is a fine actor and played the role well – with wonderful power and tone. But then, as he is the METs Fafner in Lepage’s Siegfried next season perhaps this should not come as a surprise.

It’s always difficult for directors to know what to do with the Forest Bird. Stick her  up on a crane? Hang her from the rafters? It’s a brave performer that takes this role, but at least this time Allison Bell did not need to fear for her safety. She begins off stage and then enters stage left, dancing her way around Siegfried for all the world like Kate Bush in one of her late 70s videos! Oddly enough, she looks a little like a young Kate Bush – which is no bad thing. It is unusual to find a soprano that can also perform “modern” dance and was a refreshing change. She makes a more than pleasant Forest Bird vocally also.

And finally act 3 (the act that I know is the only reason some people go to Siegfried) The entrance of Evelyn Krahe’s Erda is done masterfully (act three is the most successful visually of this production).   It is simply too complex to describe, but Krahe’s frankly ill and somewhat statuesque entrance to Wotan’s command – being led by her three daughters – needs to be seen. Krahe’s frail and obviously “dying” Erda is something that must be seen and heard. The entire scene is well conceived and the interaction between Krahe and Joll believable.

Next, Alywn Mellor’s Brünnhilde!  One of the reasons that I went to Longborough was to see Mellor’s Brunnhilde following her magnificent Isolde at Grange Park (Oh dear, one hopes one is not becoming star stuck at my age) . My intent was to wait till 2013 and see the entire Ring at Longborough then.  Although after Siegfried I will be returning next year with no hesitation – the dates are already blanked out in my diary.  But what can I say? Magnificent?  Sublime? I have already said enough I think in my thoughts on her Isolde – see here. And yet, perhaps vocally she was on even finer form – and now against the forces of a greater and more powerful orchestra, under the control of one of Britain’s leading unsung Wagnerian conductors  and a wonderful Siegfried. Top, middle and bottom of her register were magnificent. Even with the excellent cast that the Grahams had somehow managed to assemble, on awaking it is as if a Brunnhilde of legend has entered the stage. It is no wonder that Seattle have selected her as their Brünnhilde for 2013. I think that not everyone is convinced by what I write about Mellor.  Well, you will have the chance to hear for yourself shortly as she is Sieglinde (once more working alongside the extraordinary Clive Bayley as Hunding) in Die Walkure in Opera North’s ongoing Ring Cycle. This I believe, like the Rheingold, will be broadcast live June 2012.

Anthony Negus and the LFO orchestra. What was most amazing was that it was nearly impossible to tell that you were listening to an orchestra nearly half the size as specified by Wagner. A reviewer somewhere mentioned it being a chamber orchestra – but this, thanks to Negus’s wonderful management - is a chamber orchestra in name and size only, but certainly not in sound.  While performing in an opera house that was built to deliberately mirror Bayreuth helps (or perhaps hinders  - see below),  there was all of the lushness that you would expect from a full sized world class, Wagner orchestra.  Negus – and the LFO orchestra - cannot be commended enough. And while it is true that there was a fine cast, one wonders, given the inexperience of Brenna in the role of Siegfried  for example, if they would have been as good under a lesser conductor. What is surprising about Negus is that although he received much of his Wagner training under Goodall (although of course he was also assistant conductor at Glyndebourne’s Meistersinger this year and has worked with many other world class conductors), his tempos are nothing like Goodalls. His command and understanding of Wagner’s opera may be similar, but he has far more forward momentum then Goodall - even in his later years. Goodall was “discovered” relatively late in his career as the conductor that he was, one wonders if it is a pattern repeating itself with Negus? If you wish to see him on the podium before LFO next year, he will be conducting WNO Marriage of Figaro February through to April next season.

And Finally, LFO itself. It is unusual for me to comment on a “venue” but LFO needs to be discussed a little before I conclude. There has been much made of LFO’s “amateurish nature”, that the opera house is a former “chicken shed”, that it is all highly “eccentric” etc. This needs to be clarified and addressed. If LFO was indeed ever a “chicken shed” it in no way resembles one now. Instead, you are met with a highly professional opera house – if one on the scale of Grange Park (they have similar capacities). What is extraordinary about it is its similarity – acoustically – to Bayreuth.  Bayreuth is designed (whether accidently or intuitively by Wagner is a matter of debate)  to add a certain “lushness” to the orchestra while at the same time favouring the voice (to some conductors disdain) . LFO is the same. Nowhere in England – and possibly anywhere in the world outside of Bayreuth – will you hear Wagner (and especially the Ring and Parsifal) sound the way Wagner intended them to be heard. This may sound like an exaggeration but it is true nevertheless.   Read any of the reviews and you will hear comments that the voice is favoured at LFO. It is the same at Bayreuth – only it is now so well established that few comment upon it. This allows LFO to use voices that anywhere else simply would not have the raw “power” to be heard against Wagner’s orchestral forces. It is thus possible for LFO to use singers who are highly lyrical but elsewhere would simply not have the vocal “heft” to succeed in Wagner – and this adds a very special dynamic. 

Even more extraordinary is the sheer determination of the Grahams. Within a few years they have gone from staging Mozart in their living room to building an opera house specifically to stage Wagner and then begin to stage a full Ring Cycle! Sheer insanity and yet they have done it. And the opera house itself is constantly developing,  only a few years ago the roof was raised – literally. And one senses they have not finished yet.

And finally for the British Summer Opera Festival “snobs” among you  - you know who you are. Yes, you with  Debrett’s Social Season page set as your homepage.  LFO offers the “full” experience. Set in fine gardens, in the middle of lush rolling countryside, it is easily on par with the Glyndebourne or Grange Park “experience”.

As noted in my opening remark – Wagner was often dismayed with what happened to his operas once they left his control. And Siegfried perhaps above all of his mature works, is the most difficult to stage. What is certain is that at LFO Siegfried is in safe and confident hands. Roll on 2012.

Disclaimer: There is a debate taking place about "sponsored" blogs over at Twitter at the moment - an unhealthy practice in my opinion. With that in mind I thought it worth making the following clear: I have no associations - monetarily or socially (except of course when I buy tickets from them) with LFO, the Grahams or anyone - as far as I am aware - associated with LFO). LFO has not approached me in  any way while I produce any article about it . I happen to be in the relatively comfortable position to be able to do this stuff purely for pleasure. Indeed, if I feel that I might write about an event I try to remain as far away from it's organisers as possible. While at Longborough for example,  we were sitting in a box very close to the Grahams but we did not even go and congratulate them on the performance - for this reason (well I am also an unsociable old so and so and a tad mean - it would be terrifying if I had to buy them drink -  but that's another issue).

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Siegfried: Longborough Festival Opera - Review of the Reviews

Yes, it's that time again. The critics have digested their picnics, metabolised their no doubt unhealthy consumption of alcohol (I will write an ode to the expense account one day - or failing that, to the liver of a journalist) returned their rented evening wear to Moss Bros (why are most arts reviewers male?) and faced off with their editors about word limits (not something that I would envy - as readers of my more than verbose ramblings will attest). Emerging from darkened, smoke filled rooms, copy in hand (well in the 21st Century they are more likely to have pressed "send" on their Apple Note Books, but you know what I mean) the votes are in. Rising majestically from their royal seats, togas flung nonchalantly to one side (although not to far to one side one hopes), thumbs posed - up or down?

But, before we start, the usual words of warning: Perception and information processing is not uniform across all individuals (after all, isn't that what makes us "individual" and why Buddhists spend so much time in meditation?). Each reviewer is influenced, as I know you are aware but is so easy to forget, by their past present and even perhaps future experiences, a repository of all those little quirks , likes and dislikes, physiological and psychological perfections and indeed imperfections. Look for patterns in reviews is my motto - look for patterns and therein may lay some resemblance of the "truth" - whatever that may be. One might also notice that the Times and the Telegraph are conspicuous by their absence. This is no doubt because they are simply slow typists (I know from twitter that the Telegraph descended on LFO yesterday) I was going to wait but alas my own "none review" is growing impatient to be typed - and I wished to do this first. Also, there is both enough quantity and quality already here to do - although it would have been nice to add Michael Tanners thoughts over at the Spectator. Perhaps later. So, with that in mind, onward to the judges.

Production

Given the limited budget that LFO operates under and the size of the stage there was bound to be some disagreement about the staging one supposes - but then in opera productions - especially Wagner - there is never likely to be agreement.

Nicholas Wroe at the Guardian (NW-G) enjoyed the simplicity of the sets saying: "Kjell Torriset's set contrasts hard scaffolding with the softness of fabric, Guy Hoare's lighting adds depth, and the balance of stark simplicity against the richness of the score, with all its psychological and metaphorical allusions was always artful." Of the "Norns" (every present at LFOs ring cycle) he was equally impressed and indeed found them central to the production: "Key to the integrity of this staging is the role of the three Norns, the mythological spinners of the thread of life: an almost constant presence in head-to-toe black, subtly choreographed by Suzanne Firth, observing and assisting, moving props and scenery, they point up the centrality of the emotions with great economy of line"

Over at the Stage George Hall (S-GH) was equally impressed although not as enamoured with the Norns: "Alan Privett’s staging, designed by the Norwegian artist Kjell Torriset, has some sparse, limited sections - the three additional actors, dressed like stage attendants in a Noh production, can seem intrusive. Yet scene after the scene realises the essential meaning of the work in a semi-traditional, simple way. The entire third act is a triumph."

At The Arts Desk, Stephen Walsh (AD-SW) finds "'Nature, such a crucial aspect of Wagner’s dramaturgy, is nowhere to be seen' He goes on: Like many modern directors, Privett (with designer Kjell Torriset) rejects the great outdoors in favour of quasi-interiors littered with bric-a-brac, not all of it obviously relevant to the plot in hand, so that an already cramped stage becomes an obstacle course of gantries and scaffolding, criss-cross ramps, and in the first act a huge furnace door, far downstage, which also oddly enough serves as an entrance and exit." He wasn't keen on Fafner either: "Fafner the dragon, grandly sung by Julian Close, trundles on atop a cherry-picker scaffold tower, a most disappointing adversary for our eager young hero"


At the other stage - Whats On Stage - Simon Thomas (WOS - ST) considered the staging merely "functional" and even went as far as to suggest the second act was "semi-staged" (What would he have made of the Wagner Brothers "New Bayreuth Style"?). But then suggests that: "Alan Privett’s production is strictly functional, beginning with bare scaffolding combined with a burnished disc which harks back to the industrial setting of Patrice Chereau’s 1976 Bayreuth cycle"! Going on to say: "The opening of the final act is the most pleasing visually, with a raked platform that slides apart to let out an eerily effective Erda" So he might have liked the the Wagner Brothers productions after all.

Mark Ronan (MR) at his Theatre Reviews blog is more interested in the performance (not a bad thing) only commenting on the act one staging: "The Act I set with its huge circular furnace door makes a strong impression, and in forging the sword, Siegfried hammered like a percussionist with fine musical effect"
Performance:

Daniel Brenna - Siegfried

It must be said that everyone was unanimous in their praise for this productions Siegfried:

Says WOS-ST: "The casting of the central role in Siegfried, a headache for any opera company these days, is a considerable challenge for a small house like the Cotswolds-based Longborough Festival Opera. What a coup if they could not only cast it but unearth a new tenor who will go on to shine in the role around the world. They might just have done that."

He goes on: "American tenor Daniel Brenna bounds on in Act 1 and bounces around like a chubby schoolboy, showing so much youthful exuberance that you can’t help wondering if he’ll last the night. But, apart from showing signs of wear at the very end of this first performance, he certainly stayed the course. The paradox of the role is that the voice needs maturity, which Brenna’s bright, sweet sound will gain over time but, in the meantime, how refreshing to have a Siegfried who actually looks as though he could be Brünnhilde’s nephew rather than her father. His acting needs some attention (far too much teenagerish flouncing and grimacing which fails to convince) but a new, genuinely youthful Siegfried has arrived and it’s something to be celebrated"

While over at the Guardian: In Daniel Brenna, Longborough has a young Siegfried of irrepressible physical and vocal energy. Tall and impetuous, his journey from petulant youth towards manhood and love was wholly confident, only less convincing expressive lyrical moments betraying debut nerves. The final scene when he awakens Alwyn Mellor's voluptuous-sounding Brünnhilde to ultimate rapture had a slight gaucheness, only partially implied by Wagner

And more praise over at the Stage:"Vocally, too, this is a remarkable evening. The young American tenor Daniel Brenna looks and acts the callow hero impressively and his tone remains convincing to the close."

And at the Arts Desk? What did you find Mr Walsh?

 "At its head is a young American Siegfried, Daniel Brenna (main picture), who as far as I know is completely new to the British stage. From his first “Hoi-ho” it’s instantly apparent that he’s a Wagner tenor of outstanding promise, a natural with a brilliant, easy top to the voice that half-recalls Melchior, strong projection throughout the range, excellent German and a completely unforced stage presence." 

Lauritz Melchior -"Notung! Notung!"- Siegfried

Wait did you say that Brenna reminds you of MELCHIOR? Now if that were correct... But he is not finished yet: "...it’s great to hear this difficult, taxing music sung so uninhibitedly, and without a trace of exhaustion to the very last phrase of his final-act duet ..."

Melchior? Sorry, still taking that in - give me a minute...

Ok, recovered. Onwards, like Siegfried through the forest of his unconscious. Sorry! went all Freudian there for a minute. Melchior? Still in shock it would seem. Anyway, onto to Mark Ronans perceptions:"It seemed incredible that a mere twenty-something could be singing Siegfried, though Daniel Brenna is in fact in his early to mid-forties despite his brilliant portrayal of a rambunctious young man. His enunciation of the words was so strikingly good that I needed no surtitles — it was as though he were merely speaking, yet with excellent pitch and an admirable heroic tone"

And trust me, this goes on and on with all of the reviewers that I have found. Lets stop there - lest Brenna is snapped up by one of the major (ie those with tons of money) opera houses before he can return for the final part of the Ring - lets call it the "Mellor effect".


Colin Judson - Mime

It seems Simon Thomas' editor over at WOS gave him very limited copy space that ment he had little space left for the rest of the cast: "Colin Judson is a bright, sharply characterized and sung Mime"

Mark Ronan gives himself a little more space

:"Colin Judson was equally superb in his portrayal of the insecure and dissimulating dwarf Mime. Of course he deserves to die in Act II after inadvertently expressing his true feelings, but from a vocal point of view I was sorry to see him go."

However, the Guardian's reviewer only got space for: "All the frustration and angst of Siegfried's relationship with the wily Mime (Colin Judson), and of Mime with Alberich was cleverly handled"

Says This is Gloucestershire in its frankly wonderfully concise review: "Colin Judson, another fine singer, is a convincing Mime with his twitches and other irritating mannerisms."

And finally the Arts Desk: "the Mime of Colin Judson, a clever, witty character tenor, more likeable, maybe, than this slimy, manipulative dwarf should be, brilliantly watchable in his scene with the Wanderer (Philip Joll), voice and face reflecting exactly the ebb and flow of the riddles which will in the end cost him his life"

Phillip Joll - The Wanderer

Philip Joll - a legend among British Wagnerians especially - after all these years what did the press think?

Mark Ronan: "As the Wanderer, Phillip Joll showed power and gravitas, particularly in his Act II dialogue"

The Guardian? "Philip Joll as the Wanderer – the god Wotan in disguise – was always forceful and imposing, if indeterminate of pitch" And yet over at WOS: "Philip Joll is a vintage Wotan and his Wanderer sounds in surprisingly good shape"

Equally, Roger Jones: "The excellent Phillip Joll as Wotan seems to be a cut above the others – he is a god, after all – and his rich baritone voice lends him an air of authority."

And Finally the Arts Desk:

"(Phillip) Joll himself, a voice from the past in this role as far as I’m concerned, turns out to be still in fine fettle, superb especially in his third-act confrontations with Erda and Siegfried – the only music Wagner wrote for the Ring’s ambiguous, Zeus-like hero after picking the work up again post-Tristan and Meistersinger"

Alwyn Mellor - Brunnhilde

To be honest, all of the reviewers said much the same and, like with Brenna, are unanimous in their praise. : 

Says WOS: "Alwyn Mellor, so impressive as Isolde at Grange Park earlier in the season, is a fresh voiced and attractive Brünnhilde"

The Guardian: "...Alwyn Mellor's voluptuous-sounding Brünnhilde..."

Roger Jones: "We have to wait till the end of the opera to glimpse Alwyn Mellor in the role of Brünnhilde, but she is well worth waiting for. Passionate and feisty, the iron maiden demonstrates she is no push-over as she thrills the audience with her top Cs."

The Stage: "British soprano Alwyn Mellor adds further to her Wagnerian reputation with her confident Brunnhilde." 

The Arts Desk: "Alwyn Mellor, who herself sings Brünnhilde with radiant tone and vivid dramatic intensity"

And finally, least it all go to her head, Mark Ronan:

"Alwyn Mellor showed immense power and presence as Brünnhilde, and although Longborough has only 500 seats, she will sing the same role in The Ring at Seattle in 2013, in an auditorium for 2,500.

The Rest Of The Cast: (sorry for the limited space - seems editors are strict about word counts. I shall try to make amends in my future "none review" and address the cast fully.

The Guardian:  "Evelyn Krahe was a very fine Erda and Julian Close a fearsome Fafner"

Mark Ronan: "Nicholas Folwell’s strongly sung Alberich, and when he wakes Fafner, we hear the deep voice of Julian Close who will cover the same role at the Metropolitan Opera next season". "...woodbird in her pretty skirt and flighty movements, delightfully sung by Allison Bell"

"In her Act III portrayal of Erda, Evelyn Krahe’s slow movements and almost ghostly appearance, helped give a sense of power to the role..."

The Arts Desk: "Evelyn Krahe’s Erda admirably statuesque, dark-voiced, but beautiful enough, in a cadaverous sort of way..."  "Nicholas Folwell, also rather well directed, remains one of the best Alberichs imaginable: a dark, virile baritone, remorseless in his exposure of Wotan’s hypocrisies, yet in an odd way vulnerable..."

"the Woodbird is a pretty singing dancer, Allison Bell, not very feathered, though mildly avian in tone and tuning.

The Stage:

"Vocally, too, this is a remarkable evening". "Nicholas Folwell makes a striking Alberich, Evelyn Krahe a resplendent Erda and Allison Bell a delightfully fresh Woodbird"

The Conductor and Orchestra.

The Guardian: "Negus's profound musicianship carries the day and the audience rightly roared its approval' 

"Both words and plot were delivered with a immediacy in itself refreshing and often witty, allowing conductor Anthony Negus to reveal the further motivations and machinations embedded in the infinite layers of Wagner's musical characterisations"


Mark Ronan: "The orchestra of about 65 members played Wagner’s music beautifully under the sensitive direction of Anthony Negus"

The Stage: "What is remarkable about this year’s Siegfried, the third section of the cycle, is just how much is achieved. The 66-piece orchestra, conducted with authority by Anthony Negus, rises ever more confidently to the challenge and is regularly superb"

WOS:  "Anthony Negus draws luscious playing from the orchestra, especially in the love duet, which leaves the audience as fresh and invigorated at the end of the six hours as at the beginning."

Conclusion: Over-all high praise indeed, a Ring Cycle to watch closely it would seem. More, when I ramble on for hours - soon. Did some one say Melchior...?

Lauritz Melchior - Mein Lieber Schwan

Links to the full reviews below:

http://markronan.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/siegfried-longborough-festival-opera-july-2011/

http://www.whatsonstage.com/reviews/theatre/Opera/E8831311537401/Siegfried.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jul/25/siegfried-review

http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4192:siegfried-longborough-festival&Itemid=27

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/REVIEW-Siegfried-Longborough-Festival-Opera/story-13009911-detail/story.html

http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/33020/siegfried

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Siegfried (New Production) LFO: An Overview With Music

"This Longborough Ring is becoming better than any at Bayreuth for years, possibly since Wieland Wagner’s first post-war version.

I am simply lost in admiration for it all, and I suggest that he deserves every possible support that the Wagner Society can give him towards his vision of a complete Ring in the Wagner centenary year of 2013. (

PAUL DAWSON-BOWLING: 

The Wagner Society News)"

What makes Wagnerians/Wagnerites (or whatever name you chose) go to the extremes that they do? Some will buy every recording ever made; read every book ever written; travel the world to see every performance of every cycle of the Ring, even start their own academic journal! They will spend enormous amounts of money in pursuit of that Wagner "fix". Few, if any, other composer finds such obsessive "followers" (if that is what they really are - but that is a discussion for another time). However, no matter how powerful the "addiction" very few would - or have -  built their own opera house, just to hear the perfect Ring, in their own "back garden. Yet this is exactly what the Grahams have done (see here for an overview). This year  23 July, sees the premier of Siegfried, next Götterdämmerung and in 2013 an entire ring cycle.  For those interested, I present this overview. For more information - and the few remaining tickets - go to LFO website here: LFO.org.uk

Siegfried - Daniel Brenna

Born the USA, he studied music performance at Boston University, receiving Master of Music and an opera diploma.
While a Tanglewood Fellow, he sang Bernstein’s Songfest with the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra under the musical direction of Seiji Ozawa, and Milhaud’s L´Homme et son désir under Daniel Harding. He appeared in a number of roles in the USA, as well as in a Wagner concert with the Washington D.C. Wagner Society.
Since 2006 he has sung such roles as Turridu, Riccardo, Hans, Siegmund, Max, Grigorij Boris… In Summer 2010, he sang at the renowned Opera Festival St. Margarethen and in 2011 he made his debut at the Zürich Opera House as Aron (Christoph von Dohnányi/ Achim Freyer), a role he sung before with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestera.

And what have the press said of his Wagner? (Forgive the poor German translation but time waits, etc)

Theater Görlitz – Die Walküre - SIEGMUND
''And, as sung,  acted and played, that is the next surprise… In the end, we have the ballad of Siegmund and Sieglinde impressively interpretted by the Görlitz Ensemble members Daniel Brenna and Yvonne Reich. Brenna’s youthful tenor, Reich’s vulnerable, knowing Soprano, both make the most of the musical extremes, surrendering themselves to the music and to the audience. Wagner singing in the dimensions of a song evening, ranging from delicate passages of internalized speech to highly charged emotional outbursts.' - Klassik.com

'…Daniel Brenna is  musically and dramatically a discovery: very worth hearing.' - Sächsische Zeitung

'...Yvonne Reich (Sieglinde), Daniel Brenna (Siegmund), and Gary Jankowski (Hunding) carry production. They perform the music, they live in the characters, they play their believable relationships. They sing Wagner and his verses movingly. Their voices bloom. The text is understandable, working in its foreign artificiality with the pathos of the music. The result is a gripping hour of musical theater, thus Wagner finds its audience in Görlitz. Bravo!'   - Sächsische Zeitung

Brünnhilde – Alwyn Mellor

Liebestod

Mellor is certainly a wagnerian soprano to watch. Having just completed one of the most extraordinary Isoldes I have ever seen, at Grange Park (see my review here), she will be off to Seattle as Brunnhilda in their 2013 Ring Cycle. Catch her in the UK while you can. Born in Lancashire, Alwyn Mellor began her career where she has enjoyed a wide range of roles, most recently appearing as Tosca. She has sung three seasons at Santa Fe Opera and other companies with whom she has appeared include the Canadian Opera Company, Opéra-Théâtre de Limoges, English National Opera, Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Opera Ireland and Opera North. In concert she has appeared widely throughout the UK and Europe, and sang Brünnhilde Die Walküre for Longborough Festival Opera last Summer. Future engagements include Minnie La Fanciulla del West, Brünnhilde Götterdämmerung and Sieglinde Die Walküre for Opera North, Isolde Tristan und Isolde for Grange Park Opera, Gerhilde Die Walküre for the Royal Opera, London, Brünnhilde Siegfried for Den Nye Opera (conducted by Kent Nagano) and Oper Leipzig and Brünnhilde Die Walküre / Siegfried for the Paris Opera. In 2013, she appears as Brünnhilde Der Ring des Nibelungen in Seattle Opera’s three Bi-Centenary Cycles.

What the Press have said of her Wagner:

"The quality of singing is also high, with Richard Berkeley-Steele and Alwyn Mellor strongly cast as the lovers" - Barry Millington

Mellor's fleshy-toned Isolde sounding amazingly fresh as she soars through the climactic Liebestod - The Guardian

And of Alywyn Mellor?  What can one say : her vocal power, beauty and warmth have grown substantially. Her Isolde is not only a revelation due to her fine acting - which manages to make this the most human of Isoldes – but so to is her vocal performance. Rarely does one truly feel one is in the presence of an Isolde of exceptional beauty and quality but tonight was one of those nights. - The Wagnerian

"That was bloody marvellous - The Wagnerian's Partner

Mime – Colin Judson

As Mime

After completing vocal studies he established a successful relationship with Glyndebourne Festival Opera for whom he sang Coryphee Le Comte Ory and Gaston La Traviata, Andrew in Birtwistle’s The Last Supper (also Staatsoper Berlin, Queen Elizabeth Hall) and Remendado Carmen. Colin subsequently became a member of the Cologne Opera where roles included Hirt/Junge Seeman Tristan und Isolde, Monostatos Die Zauberflöte, Spoletta Tosca, GoroMadama Butterfly, PedrilloDie Entführung aus dem Serail and Truffaldino The Love for Three Oranges.
Colin has sung with ENO and at the Royal Opera as well as at the Teatro Real Madrid, the Opera National du Rhin (as Mime Das Rheingold), in Bordeaux and Toulouse. A series of short television operas featuring Colin in a variety of roles was broadcast last year on BBC TV.Future projects include Nick Fanciulla del West at the Edinburgh Festival, Truffaldino Love for Three Oranges in Limoges and Dr. Caius Falstaff in Nantes.

What the Press have said of his Wagner:

"... Colin Judson's Mime, absolutely top -world-class. He seemed to have taken 'Vater und Mutter zugleich' as his springboard, sporting two aprons, one masculine-blacksmith, the other feminine-housewife-he could swap gender at the drop of a semiquaver, really unsettling. This riveting, well-sung impersonation, half malevolent, half strangely sympathetic, forever teetering on the edge of madness, reminded you that Mime is one of Wagner's most dazzlingly brilliant creations..." Opera Magazine, June 09

Wotan – Phillip Joll

With Goodall As Wotan (Documentry:  Click plus to expand)

Phillip Joll was born in Wales and studied at the RNCM and the London National Opera Studio. He has sung at all the major houses in the UK and abroad at the New York Met, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Arizona, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Opera Bastille Paris, Bordeaux, Dresden, Stuttgart, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, Karlsruhe, Dortmund, Brussels, Amsterdam, Reisopera Enschede, de Vlaamse Opera, Turin, Palermo, Bologna, Barcelona and in Korea and Bangkok. He has a large repertoire including Wotan/Wanderer, Amfortas, Kurwenal, title role Der Fliegende Holländer, Donner, Barak, Johanaan, Orest, title role Wozzeck in both Berg and Gurlitt’s version, Pizarro and Kaspar Der Freischütz. His Italian roles include Amonasro, Simon Boccanegra, Macbeth, Francesco I due Foscari, Falstaff, Anckarström, Rigoletto, Scarpia, Alfio Cavalleria Rusticana, Tonio I Pagliacci, Jack Rance La Fanciulla del West, Sharpless, Michele Il Tabarro in addition to BalstrodePeter Grimes, King Fisher A Midsummer Marriage, Nick Shadowthe Rake’s Progress, Creon Oedipus Rexand Thoas Iphigenie en Tauride. Future performances include Scarpia Tosca for Bangkok Opera, Priest Grigoris The Greek Passion for Teatro Massimo and a return to Welsh National Opera.

Alberich - Nicholas Folwell (Straight from Opera North's Rheingold!)

Nicholas Folwell has sung with all the major British opera companies. For ENO Blond Eckbert, Papageno, Tonio, Falke, Mutius,Timon of Athens, Sancho Don Quixote, Poacher/Forester, Major Mary Die Soldaten, Music Master Ariadne on Naxos, Bosun Billy Budd, Host Sir John in Love, Antonio Figaro, Commissar of Police Rosenkavalier. Other notable engagements Figaro, Leporello, Pizarro, Escamillo, Poacher, Klingsor, Alberich (WNO); Poacher, Antonio (ROH); Figaro, Alberich, Melitone Forza del destino, Bartolo Il barbiere di Siviglia, Mumlal The Two Widows (Scottish Opera); Pizarro, Figaro (GTO); Beckmesser, Leporello (Opera North); Alberich (Nantes); Figaro, Le chat/L’horloge L’Enfant et les sortilèges (Opera Zuid); Masetto (Tel Aviv); Marullo (Frankfurt); Koroviev in première of Der Meister und Margarita (Paris Opera); Don Inigo Gomez L’Heure espagnole; Pizarro (Holland Park); Forthcoming: Nachtigall (ROH), Alberich and the Forester Cunning Little Vixen (Nationale Reisopera), Alberich in Norway under Kent Nagano. Nicholas sang Alberich in Das Rheingold in 2007.

What the Press have said of his Wagner:

Nicholas Folwell’s brutish Alberich is magnificent – his curse the best bit of sustained Wagnerian fury I’ve heard in years.” Richard Morrison / The Times

“ …Of the uniformly strong cast Nicholas Folwell’s Alberich was horribly good.” Rian Evans / The Guardian * * * *

Fafner – Julian Close

Julian has appeared with ENO, Scottish Opera, WNO, Opera North, Mid-Wales Opera, Lyric Opera Dublin, Stanley Hall Opera, English Pocket Opera, Jubilee Opera, The Opera Project, and the Wexford, Buxton, Northampton, Longborough and Iford Festivals in roles including: Wotan, Fafner, Hunding, Hagen Der Ring des Nibelungen, Titurel Parsifal, Colonna Rienzi DosifeyKhovanschina, Vodnik Rusalka, Commendatore Don Giovanni, Grand Inquisitor Don Carlos, Pistol Falstaff, Sarastro and Sprecher Die Zauberflöte, Dr. Bartolo Le nozze di Figaro, Count Walter Luisa Miller, Nilakantha Lakme, Méphistophélès Faust, Zuniga Carmen, Mayor Jenufa, Collatinus The Rape of Lucretia, Timur Turandot, Colline La Bohème, Don Basilio Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Ferrando Il trovatore,Bonze Madama Butterfly, Luther and Crespel Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Sparafucile Rigoletto and RamfisAida. He has also performed concerts across the UK and in the US including LES NOCES with the Michael Clarke Dance Company at the Barbican, London and the Lincoln Center, New York. Later this year he will cover Fafner Siegfried for New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Julian has sung at Longborough on a number of occasions.

Erda – Evelyn Krahe

To Listen to her Erda click here

Evelyn Krahe studied singing with Diane Pilcher and took part in master classes with Brigitte Fassbaender and Claudia Eder.
Performances at Theater Bonn, Theater Bremen, Theater Detmold and Theater Brandenburg included Annina The Knight of the Rose, Hippolyta A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Karoline von Günderrode (Kleist) and Erda, Flosshilde Das Rheingold , and for WDR radio orchestra she sang the role of Melousine Operette Cloclo. Evelyn regularly performs as a concert singer.

She made her British debut 2007 at Longborough as Erda and FlosshildeDas Rheingold, returning in 2008 and in 2010 to sing Schwertleite Die Walküre. Since the 2008/2009 season, Evelyn has been a member of the Landestheater Detmold, where Wagners Ring is currently being performed. There she sings Flosshilde, Erda Das Rheingold, Grimgerde Die Walküre, ErdaSiegfried and 1. Norn, Waltraute and Flosshilde Götterdämmerung.
During the 2009/2010 season, Evelyn sang Filipjewna Eugene Onegin at the Staatstheater Braunschweig, and Grimgerde at the Deutsche Opera am Rhein, Düsseldorf.

What the Press have said of her Erda

Evelyn Krahe - an Erda with a magical straight-forward contralto, a voice crafted from only the finest! Opernnetz 

(...) passionately boasting with beautiful volume - Evelyn Krahe's Erda. Lippische Landeszeitung, 30.03.2009

(...) Evelyn Krahe exudes great augustness as the earth godess Erda, thanks to her darkly resplendent contralto. Westfälische Nachrichten, 01.04.2009

A beautiful, slim Erda, Evelyn Krahe faces her summoner full of dignity in an umber-coloured gown, giving voice to her weighty arguments with an appropriately sonorous contralto. Der Neue Merker Wien, March 2009

(...) Evelyn Krahe's Erda stands out with its metallic, slightly dark timbre. OMM (Online Musik Magazin)

Forced into daylight from out of the foot of the tree, practically from out of the roots themselves - one of the most poetical images of the evening - Evelyn Krahe let flow the balmy primordial words of the Wala. Finally we get to hear once again in this role an established contralto voice and not a mezzosoprano struggling with the lower notes. La Krahe is also blessed with a captivingly beautiful timbre. Der Opernfreund, April 2009

Evelyn Krahe is also to be mentioned as a truly profound Erda (...) Opernwelt, May 2009
Evelyn Krahe lent magic to her short scene as Erda with an exceptionally unusual volume and colour.Opernglas 5/2009

Forest Bird – Allison Bell

Tasmanian born Allison Bell studied Music and History at Sydney University. In Europe she received numerous awards including the La Scala Prize at the Viñas Competition in Barcelona.Roles include Folie Platée (Rameau), Aspasia Mitridate(Mozart), Königin der Nacht Die Zauberflöte (Mozart), Glauce Medea (Cherubini), Adele Die Fledermaus Olympia Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Allison created the role of Sierva Maria in Eötvös’ Love and Other Demons at Glyndebourne under Jurowski, repeating the role in Vilnius and Strasbourg. . With the LPO Allison was soloist for the UK premieres of Schnittke’s Three Madrigals, Three Scenes and Der Gelbe Klang and Pierrot Lunaire. Other recent performances include Carmina Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia and Le Feu, La Princesse and Le Rossignol in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges with the Bolshoi. Forthcoming performances include Berio’s Chamber Music London Sinfonietta, Grisey Quatre Chants pour Franchir le Seuil with the LPO,Mahler’s Das Klagende Lied in Berlin and Munich.

Anthony Negus  - Conductor

A Wagner enthusiast since his youth, Anthony worked for WNO with the legendary Sir Reginald Goodall, and has gained international authority as a conductor and coach of Wagner’s works.
Since his first Parsifal performances for WNO in 1983, he has conductedTristan, Rheingold, Siegfried, Gotterdammerung, Parsifal again (2003).

Together with director Alan Privett he built up the CBTO/Jonathan Dove Ring Cycle for LFO. He also performed this version in Pittsburgh with Opera Theatre Pittsburgh. For WNO, in addition to Wagner, he has conducted a wide range of operas, especially Mozart (all of his major operas and in particular The Magic Flute andFigaro), Beethoven Leonore, Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten, Elektra, Ariadne auf Naxos. Other 20th century operas include Janacek Katya Kabanova, Jenufa, Berg Wozzeck, Martinu The Greek Passion, James MacMillan The Sacrifice (now issued on Chandos CDs. Future plans include a performance of Die Meistersinger for Glyndebourne in 2011.

Alan Privett - Director

Alan Privett’s career reflects a wide and varied training in a number of different fields that have contributed to his work as a director. As Artistic Director of Longborough Festival Opera he has been responsible for the development of the Ring project.
Alan was born in Cheshire and read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He also studied at the Leicester School of Education and at the Architectural Association, and has an ARCM in vocal performance

As a director he has worked with a variety of companies in this country and abroad. Operas include Handel Rinaldo, Agrippina, Acis and Galatea, Partenope, Cavalli Erismena, BauldNell (Donmar Warehouse); Cosi fan tutte, Marriage of Figaro; Verdi Rigoletto; Dido and AeneasMidsummer Opera; Newson Mrs Fraser’s Frenzy (Canterbury, Cheltenham Festivals, Purcell Room);Madam Butterfly, Turandot, Verdi Aida, Macbeth, Traviata, L’Elisir d’Amore, Orpheus in the Underworld, Don Giovanni (Opera South East); The Ring, The Magic Flute, Cosi fan tutte, Tosca, Hansel and Gretel, Carmen (Longborough).


Kjell was born in Norway. He trained at Sir John Cass College, St. Martin’s School of Art (BA hons), London, Brighton Polytechnic and Statens Kunstakademi, Oslo. He is principally an artist, but his work for the stage includes designs for Nasjonaltheatret, Oslo and Longborough Festival Opera Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. As an artist he has exhibited in London, Hamburg, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and Edinburgh. He has executed large-scale public commissions for the new University Library, Georg Sverdrups Hus, Oslo University: Royal Norwegian Embassy, London: Tafjord Kraft, Aalesund, Norway; Radiumhospitalet, Oslo; Nasco Headquarters, Edinburgyh. His work is in many public collections includign the British Museum, London; the National Museum for Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo; the Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo.

Dates:

23, 25, 28, 30 July 2011

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Bayreuth In A Garden:Longborough Festival Opera 2011

That most unusual of British Opera festivals is due to start, and I will be covering it in more detail soon. But while Siegfried hunts for a suitable bear, I thought this feature from The Times last year, deserved reforging for now. Of course, Walkure was launched successfully and this year it is Siegfried's turn but if you can, the Graham's still need your support.


Richard Morrison: the great British eccentrics and the Ring

Richard Morrison - April 30, 2010

When I come to write the definitive history of English eccentricity — a subject I have lived with all my life — I will definitely allocate a chapter to Martin and Lizzie Graham. Other people have shrubs in their garden. The Grahams are growing something a little larger: a bicentenary production of Wagner’s Ring. All four operas and 15 hours of it. Staged in a converted chicken barn in rural Gloucestershire.

It will cost them about a million quid, plus the rest — because nothing with the word “Wagner” attached comes budget-priced. They don’t get a penny of public subsidy, and have precisely three years to raise the money, because for some reason the Germans are insistent that Wagner’s bicentenary can’t be shifted from 2013. The whole project is blissfully barmy. Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of Longborough Festival Opera.

The Grahams are an engaging couple. Martin grew up in Longborough,didn’t excel at school and became a builder’s mate. He’s now one of the leading property developers in the Midlands. He met Lizzie, a former English teacher, at a party. “I was impressed by his talk about literature,” she says. “Only later did I find out how few books he had actually read. He marshalled his knowledge extremely cleverly.”

In the 1990s both became fascinated by opera in general and Wagner in particular. But whereas most Wagner obsessives spend their summers in Bayreuth and try to lead normal lives for the rest of the year, the Grahams felt the urge to do something much stranger. They decided to present Wagner in their garden. “I thought ‘This is so simple’, because we already had the barn,” Martin says.

The obvious people to consult were Georg Solti, the greatest Wagner conductor of his day, and George Christie, the owner of Glyndebourne, the oldest country-house opera festival. “Solti wrote back saying ‘You must be bonkers’ and Christie said, ‘I think you need help’.” What sort of help he didn’t specify.

Undeterred, the Grahams set about converting the barn into a theatre. A friend suggested that they give it a fake Palladian front — in pink. Cotswold District Council went collectively apoplectic, but the Grahams finally prevailed. The 480 seats came as a job lot from the Royal Opera House, which was being refurbished.

And the rest? Well, each year Martin adds another little touch to his grand project. Statues of great composers over the portico. New loos. Fancier boxes. A deeper orchestral pit (“I’ve dug out a bit more this year,” he says). More dressing rooms. Brick by brick, his old barn is looking more and more like a real opera house. And, because it’s on a ridge, the views are breathtaking. Emerge from Figaro and you can see three counties laid out like a map in front of you.

The annual festival runs for six weeks from mid-June and stages everything from Mozart to Britten. But the gleam that started the whole thing — Wagner’s Ring — hasn’t been sidelined. In 1998 the Grahams presented a “pocket” Ring: an ingenious condensing of the score by the British composer Jonathan Dove. But that was just a warm-up. In 2007 they mounted a full-scale Rhinegold. “To call it a triumph would be an understatement,” I enthused in these pages. Some props looked as though they had been plucked from a car-boot sale. Bayreuth it wasn’t. But it was sung and staged with a thrilling, almost ferocious passion.

Now the second instalment of Longborough’s Ring is ready. On July 24 the Valkyrie will swoop on the Cotswolds for three performances. In keeping with the incongruity of the place, Wotan will be played by a former fireman — a brilliant Welsh baritone, Jason Howard. The plan is that Siegfried will follow next year,Götterdämmerung in 2012 and two cycles of the whole Ring in 2013.

It’s breathtakingly risky. The Grahams have raised their ticket prices for Die Walküre: £70-£145, rather than the £35-£110 range for non-Wagner nights. But that will produce a box-office take of only about £125,000 — and the show’s budget is £225,000. The gap has to be covered by donations. For the Ring in 2013 the gap will be much bigger. “We will need a £1 million injection,” Lizzie says. “But it can’t be put off,” Martin adds firmly. “We have to take the plunge.”

Three cheers for that. The arts world is far too corporate these days. Committees, consultants, assessors, accountants, boards, bureaucrats: it sometimes seems that no performance can happen without years of discussion by hundreds of bean-counters. Longborough is heartwarming evidence that, with a dash of “can do” spirit, a lot of resourcefulness, energy and an endless supply of English eccentricity the mightiest cultural projects can flourish, on a shoestring, in the oddest places.

But they do need that million quid. The last time I looked, the Cotswolds were full of weekending City types stashing their million-pound bonuses. I don’t wish to cast aspersions. But wouldn’t a donation to Gloucestershire’s very own Ring cycle be a good way to show that you aren’t socially useless after all?

Read more at The Times Online

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LFO: "This is a bit of a shock, as if I had just found Bayreuth in someone's backyard"

"This is a bit of a shock, as if I had just found Bayreuth in someone's backyard. And there are parallels with Wagner's theatre in Longborough. "We've kept adding to the theatre each year, as the productions have changed," Martin says. Discovering the pit wasn't big enough to accommodate the 65-strong orchestra conductor Anthony Negus needed for the Ring, Martin's solution was simple. "We got a digger in and had a go underneath the theatre. It was a pretty big job."


The Guardian's Tom Service visits LFO and finds, bankers, barns, diggers, dungeons and a new Ring Cycle.

Bringing Wagner to Gloucestershire

Tom Service: The Guardian July 2010.

Martin and Lizzie Graham outside their opera house. Photograph: Stephen Shepherd

The village of Longborough in Gloucestershire is the epitome of Cotswolds sleepiness, a vision of pastoral English loveliness in which you might expect the most exciting events of the year to be the charity cricket match or the bring-and-buy sale. You could imagine a visit from John Nettles investigating one of those cheerfully rustic murders. It's not a place where you can imagine the world's biggest operatic challenge being staged. But that's until you follow the signs to Longborough festival opera, and discover the inspired madness of Martin and Lizzie Graham, who are putting on a production of Wagner's Ring Cycle. In their barn.

That's only a slight exaggeration. The venue for Longborough's annual opera season is a converted building beside the Grahams' spectacular country house, perched on a hill with jaw-dropping views across the rolling fields. Over the 20 years they have been running their unsubsidised summer opera festival, the theatre has grown from barn to a respectable impression of an opera house. Martin proudly shows off the sculptures of Wagner, Verdi, and Mozart that adorn the theatre's pink-painted mock-Palladian facade. "How old are they?" I ask. "About four or five years," Martin says. Like everything else at Longborough, there's an illusion of antiquity, but the reality is that Martin, who works in the property business, has designed and built the whole thing himself.

Longborough now has a proper artistic pedigree to go with its grandiose pretensions. A cycle of Mozart operas is under way, expertly steered by the Italian conductor Gianluca Marciano and, a few years ago, they staged a cut-down version of the Ring, much abridged and scored for a reduced orchestra. But Martin's dream has always been putting on the Ring – for real. "Georg Solti told us we were mad," he says cheerfully, as we make our way through a building site at the back of the theatre, "and we still need to find a million quid from somewhere." That million will go towards productions of all the operas that make up the Ring cycle: having put on Das Rheingold three years ago, this season it's the turn of Die Walküre, and the plan is to perform Siegfried and Götterdämmerung in the next two years, and stage the whole cycle for Wagner's bicentenary in 2013.

It all sounds marvellous, but charmed as I am by the situation and their enthusiasm, I'm beginning to think the Grahams may have fallen off the edge of a Wagnerian precipice of insanity. The Ring is enough to bring any international opera house – let alone a tiny outfit in the sticks – to its knees, financially and artistically. And then Martin shows me the theatre. "Oh – I'm sorry, they still haven't polished the wood on the boxes." There's no need to apologise: I'm gobsmacked by the sight of a perfectly proportioned 480-seat opera house, complete with the Royal Opera House's old red-velvet seats, thrown away after Covent Garden's refurbishment.

This is a bit of a shock, as if I had just found Bayreuth in someone's backyard. And there are parallels with Wagner's theatre in Longborough. "We've kept adding to the theatre each year, as the productions have changed," Martin says. Discovering the pit wasn't big enough to accommodate the 65-strong orchestra conductor Anthony Negus needed for the Ring, Martin's solution was simple. "We got a digger in and had a go underneath the theatre. It was a pretty big job." The result is an orchestra pit that's like a smaller version of Wagner's in Bayreuth, descending yards underneath the stage to create the ideal sonic balance between the singers and the orchestra. "Let's go down to the dungeon." After limboing under girders and ladders – health and safety take a distant second place to operatic ambitions at Longborough – I see where the brass players will play for Die Walküre, deep in the bowels of the Cotswolds earth.

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