Martin and Lizzie Thomas have busily been laying the foundations of what may in age become a British BayreuthEach year, at the end of July, lovers of the operas of Richard Wagner constitute the journey from encircling the earth to the composer’s own theatre in Franconia for the annual Bayreuth festival. This year’s festival opens tonight with a fresh production of Tannhäuser. Yet tickets to Bayreuth are as dense to come by as tickets to the men’s 100m final at the London Olympics – and will get much harder as Wagner’s bicentenary approaches in 2013. As a result, most of those who dream of making the journey to Germany never get the chance. Yet all is not lost, at least for British Wagnerians. For the past hardly any years, Martin and Lizzie Thomas have busily been laying the foundations of what may in age become a British Bayreuth, the Longborough Festival Opera, in a privately built, small however delightful opera house in the Cotswolds. On Saturday, Longborough unveiled Siegfried, the third part of its increasingly acclaimed Ring cycle, compellingly conducted by the splendid Anthony Negus, who learned his trade with the legendary English Wagnerian Reginald Goodall in the 1970s. Following year, Longborough plans Götterdämmerung, while in 2013 two complete Ring cycles are scheduled. The Ring will get lots of airings to mark Wagner’s bicentenary, not least a cycle at the Proms conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Fair, nothing can compare with experiencing the Ring in the Bayreuth theatre where it was premiered in 1876. However Negus’s Ring at Longborough is building into an epic familiarity also – and it’s a abundance simpler to get to.Richard WagnerOperaguardian.co.uk © Twitter News & Media Limited 2011 | Employ of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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