Longborough Festival Opera, built by the Graham family into a Cotswolds destination for Wagner, marks thirty years with a new Meistersinger and two further productions.
Longborough Festival Opera opens its 30th-anniversary season in Longborough, Gloucestershire, on Thursday 3 June 2027, with three productions in its converted barn theatre until Saturday 7 August.
Martin and Lizzie Graham began promoting opera in the grounds of their home in 1991, under the name Banks Fee Opera. Martin Graham went on to build a 500-seat theatre there. The company is now an independent charity that takes no public grant and no revenue from the family.
Its reputation rests on Wagner. A complete Ring cycle in 2013 drew wide critical praise and made Longborough a destination for Wagnerians. A second full cycle followed in 2024.
Polly Graham, the founders’ daughter, has led the company as artistic director since 2018. She directs the season’s new Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg conducted by Anthony Negus, its conductor laureate.
Otto Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor follows in a new production, sung in a new English translation of Salomon Mosenthal’s libretto.
The season closes with a revival of Sarah Fahie’s 2024 La bohème, conducted by Alice Farnham, which recasts the seamstress Mimì as the leading artist among Puccini’s bohemians. Every performance breaks for a 90-minute dining interval in the grounds.