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Longborough Festival Opera has appointed Harry Sever as its first Ring Cycle Conducting Fellow
Harry Sever will work alongside Longborough Music Director and eminent Wagnerian Anthony Negus for the next three seasons as the festival builds towards its 2024 Ring cycle. For his first performance in the post, Sever will conduct Siegfried at Longborough on Friday 3 June 2022.
CLICK HERE to stream for FREE (until 25 February 2022) this year’s Die Walküre
United Kingdom Longborough Festival Opera 2021 [3] – Janáček, The Cunning Little Vixen: Soloists, Longborough Youth Chorus, Longborough Festival Orchestra / Justin Brown (conductor). The Big Top, Longborough, Gloucestershire, 29.7.2021. (CP)
United Kingdom Longborough Festival Opera 2021 [2] – Mozart, Così fan tutte: Soloists and the Barefoot Band / Lesley Anne Sammons (conductor). Big Top, Longborough Festival Opera, Gloucestershire, 26.6.2021. (CP)
United Kingdom Wagner, Die Walküre: Soloists, Longborough Festival Orchestra / Anthony Negus (conductor). Longborough, Gloucestershire, 8.6.2021. (JPr)
News about Longborough Opera in 2021
Longborough Festival Opera to stage three productions in Circus Big Top this season
Longborough Festival Opera has introduced a new venue for 2021: the Big Top. Three of the festival’s 2021 productions will take place in this new venue: Così fan tutte, The Return of Ulysses and The Cunning Little Vixen.
The indoor/outdoor space offers different and exciting theatrical possibilities for the creative teams, as well as excellent seating flexibility, allowing for a larger socially distanced audience than the Longborough theatre can offer. The space can also be turned into an outdoor venue as required, with the possibility of performing with the sides removed.
Longborough Artistic Director Polly Graham comments: ‘We are determined to bring our audience a wonderful and unforgettable season, and the safety of everyone involved is our priority. I am delighted that we can offer this exciting new venue for 2021 and keep live opera happening through such a challenging time. Opera in the round opens up so many different ways of expressing a story. Audiences will feel drawn in and almost part of the action. It’s opera undressed, as the focus shifts to the music, text and performance, rather than big sets and costumes, and the space itself also becomes a part of the storytelling.’The Big Top is a purpose-built auditorium with a socially distanced seating plan. The stage and amphitheatre will be clad in timber, to assist with the even spread of sound. As with the productions in the theatre, surtitles will be present for every production and visible from every seat.
2021 Performance Dates
Die Walküre: 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14 June 2021
Così fan tutte: 23, 26, 27, 29 June, 1, 3, 4 July 2021
The Return of Ulysses: 13, 15, 17, 18 July 2021
The Cunning Little Vixen: 29, 31 July, 1, 3 August 2021
Fundraising Campaign: The news of the new venue follows the success of Longborough’s 2020 fundraising campaign, which generated over £300,000 for freelance artists involved in the postponed festival and the generation of future work.
Longborough Festival Opera announces schedule for Der Ring des Nibelungen: Longborough Festival Opera will continue its Ring cycle this June, with a performance of Die Walküre in the beloved Longborough theatre. The festival will then stage Siegfried (2022) Götterdämmerung (2023) building to the full cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen in 2024.
The Longborough Festival Opera has launched a podcast series that will feature conversations with many of opera’s biggest stars. For more information about LFO’s podcasts click here.
The company has released four episodes to this point, with three of them focused on Wagner’s Ring cycle.
In the first, journalist Richard Bratby, Longborough music director Anthony Negus, and bass-baritone Paul Carey Jones talk about Wotan’s journey through the tetralogy.
In a second episode, Writer and librettist Sophie Rashbrook, soprano Lee Bisset, and historian Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough analyse the role of women in the cycle.
The third installment features a conversation on The Cunning Little Vixen hosted by Richard Bratby.
Finally, in the fourth installment, Opera director and librettist Sir David Pountney and Longborough’s artistic director Polly Graham delve into the comedic aspects of Wagner’s magnum opus
Longborough artistic director Polly Graham notes: ‘What we hope to achieve from this podcast is a chance to open up some of the amazing works we had programmed for 2020, and to celebrate the thinking of the artists we work with. The lockdown has been hugely challenging for the performing arts, but it has given us the opportunity to think creatively about different experiences we can still offer audiences. We miss our audiences so much and cannot wait to connect with them again through live theatre and music. In the meantime, we hope this podcast will continue to feed their imagination. We are so grateful for their continued support at such a challenging time.’
United Kingdom Longborough Festival Opera 2019 [4] – Cavalli, La Calisto: Soloists and the Barefoot Band / Lesley Anne Sammons (conductor). Longborough, Gloucestershire, 29.7.2019. (CP)
United Kingdom Longborough Festival Opera [3] – Mozart, Don Giovanni: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Longborough Festival Opera / Thomas Blunt (conductor). Longborough, Gloucestershire, 11.7.2019. (CP)
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