Ahead of Longborough Festival Opera's 2026 production of Orlando, directed by Sinéad O’Neill and conducted by Christopher Moulds, this episode unpacks the interconnecting love stories at the heart of Handel’s masterpiece.

Dr Ruth Smith, author of Handel's Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought leads a fascinating exploration of this much-loved baroque piece. Enjoy excerpts from the opera sung by Irish soprano Anna Devin, accompanied by Christopher Moulds on the harpsichord.

Introduced by Longborough’s Artistic Director, Polly Graham, and Alexandra Mackesy, Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees.

Recorded live at a special event for Longborough members at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠lfo.org.uk

Ahead of Longborough Festival Opera's 2025 production of Pelléas et Mélisande, directed by Jenny Ogilvie and conducted by our music director Anthony Negus, this episode unpacks Debussy's ground-breaking opera.

Soprano Kateryna Kasper, who makes her Longborough debut in 2025 with the role of Mélisande, joins baritone Robert Hayward with excerpts from the opera and songs by Debussy; and with musical extracts and discussion from Longborough's Artistic Director Polly Graham, the production's director Jenny Ogilvie, and conductor Anthony Negus.

This was recorded live at an event for Longborough members.

Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠lfo.org.uk

Music extracts and discussion on Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, ahead of the new production at Longborough Festival Opera in 2025.

Featuring Bjarte Eike and Tom Guthrie of Barokksolistene, Longborough's Artistic Director Polly Graham and Longborough Emerging Artists Frances Gregory and Sofia Kirwan-Baez. Accompanied by Satoko Doi-Luck at the harpsichord.

This was recorded live at an event for Longborough members.

Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠lfo.org.uk

Music extracts and discussion on Wahnfried: the birth of the Wagner cult, a major new opera with the UK premiere at Longborough Festival Opera in 2025. Featuring the opera's composer Avner Dorman, conductor Justin Brown and Polly Graham who will direct the 2025 production.

This was recorded live at an event for Longborough members in February 2025.

Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at ⁠⁠⁠⁠lfo.org.uk

Musicologist, translator and lecturer John Deathridge discusses musical threads in the Ring cycle, and offers advice on how to navigate the story. With musical extracts featuring Longborough's Alberich, the internationally celebrated baritone Mark Stone.

This was recorded live at the 2024 festival. Visit the Longborough website to see the presentation to enhance your listening experience!

Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at ⁠⁠⁠lfo.org.uk

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 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

Looking ahead to Longborough's 2023 production of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Robert Howarth, Olivia Fuchs and tenor Tom Randle explore Orfeo's pivotal scenes and monologues as he journeys into the underworld to find Euridice. In this podcast, two of the lead creatives on this summer's production at Longborough - Music Director Robert Howarth on keyboard, and Director Olivia Fuchs - are joined by acclaimed tenor Tom Randle, singing extracts from the title role and exploring this fathomless portrait of a grieving lover. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at LFO.org.uk

Wagner fits within a German ecological tradition stretching from Von Humboldt through Haeckel and Himmler to the Greens. Can any of this be heard in the music itself? This talk will show you how.

This episode is a lecture by Professor Michael Spitzer, author of acclaimed book The Musical Human, with musical illustrations by Longborough's Ring cycle répétiteur Kelvin Lim, recorded at an event for Longborough members.

Longborough Festival Opera's 2023 season opens with Wagner's Götterdämmerung, part of a new Ring cycle conducted by eminent Wagnerian Anthony Negus. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at LFO.org.uk

In July 2022, Longborough Festival Opera features an exciting double bill performed by our Emerging Artists: Francesca Caccini's La liberazione di Ruggiero, paired with Freya Waley-Cohen's contemporary song cycle Spell Book.

In this episode, Longborough's artistic director Polly Graham speaks to the production's director Jenny Ogilvie about her plans, with musical extracts from pianist Clíodna Shanahan and countertenor Keith Pun.

This talk was recorded at an event for Longborough members. Thanks to Stuart Essenhigh on trumpet in the introduction. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at lfo.org.uk

Korngold's Die tote Stadt forms an exciting part of Longborough's summer 2022 festival. In this episode, Korngold experts Jessica Duchen and Michael Haas teach us more about this remarkable composer. With musical extracts from pianist Charles Matthews. 

This talk was recorded at an event for Longborough members. Thanks to Stuart Essenhigh on trumpet in the introduction. Find out more about Longborough Festival Opera at lfo.org.uk

Longborough Festival Opera's Music Director Anthony Negus joins the pianist and musicologist Professor Kenneth Hamilton, as they discuss the surprising personal and musical relationships between Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Hosted by writer and librettist Sophie Rashbrook.

Thanks to Stuart Essenhigh on trumpet in the introduction. 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