The joy of Longborough’s Ring Cycle is its purity

Silence! The last of the four brass laden chords ending Wagner’s Götterdämmerung whispered to nothing. Wotan’s Valhalla was toast. Brünnhilde, his Valkyrie daughter, had ridden into the funeral pyre of her betrothed, Siegfried, his grandson. Yes, the Ring Cycle is something of a Rupert Murdoch family affair.

The cursed gold ring that tempted, then destroyed all who owned it had been restored to the three Rhine Maidens, the gold’s rightful custodians. The cascading waters of the Rhine would give birth to a brave new world. It was the end of a sixteen hour, four evening saga.

The tension in the Longborough audience was wound to such a pitch that the packed house sat spellbound. Pin-drop silent. In complete darkness. Collectively overwhelmed by the experience onstage. 

Snap! After four seconds that seemed like an eternity a tentative single clap broke the dam. Applause and bravos erupted in a cascade of praise to match the roiling Rhine.

That silence was the greatest compliment the 500 strong audience could have offered the Longborough cast, orchestra, conductor, Anthony Negus, and the works’ creators, especially director, Amy Lane, who had so subtly crafted all three of Wagner’s Ring Cycle operas and prequel, Rheingold. 

Longborough village nestles in the heart of the Cotswolds. The Grahams, Martin and Lizzie, host the opera festival in their home. Martin arrived at Longborough, aged 6. His father was a telecoms engineer at a nearby RAF base, Little Rissington. The boy explored the local countryside, experiencing a childhood “not dissimilar to Laurie Lee’s”. 

Martin recalls being attracted to music at the age of ten, the BBC Light Programme providing ear-catchers, such as Ketèlbey’s Bells Across the Meadows, or Handel’s Largo. I highly recommend a book by the excellent music writer Richard Bratby, telling the story of Longborough’s first thirty years. I suggest the hardback version. This volume is a “keeper”. 

Suffice to say that in the opening pages Martin’s fascination with music, and ultimately Wagner, is explained. The young boy fell into company with a local, steeped in lore and musical history: “The breakthrough was with Jack Wilsher – a gangling ex-railwayman from East London, completely self-taught in the arts. I would accompany him round the village each morning to hear the old jokes and all about the other world of Austrian and German music.” Already Wagner waited in the wings.

Eventually the kid from Pear Tree Cottage would return in 1985, the owner of Banks Fee, the local “big hoose”, a successful businessman in the building trade. A skill essential, if eventually opening a country opera house is an objective. 

A chamber concert in 1988 morphed into a performance by Travelling Opera in 1991. From the start, Martin insisted on orchestral rather than piano accompaniment.

The Grahams’ move to the existing house in 1995 and the conversion of the barn saw the first performances of Ring operas. When Anthony Negus, acclaimed Wagner conductor, joined in 2000, the die was cast. 

I parked in the convenient field and dodged the rain. Prepared for my six-day sojourn into the world of Norse mythology, loosely interpreted as German folkloric history, by Richard Wagner. 

Last year Götterdämmerung had been so compelling that the opportunity to experience the complete Longborough Ring was irresistible. Unsurprisingly, “She who dislikes opera” had completed her annual duties at Garsington. I was flying solo. 

The Deck Bar, which leads into the upper regions of the opera house, was bubbling with chat. “This is my 27^th Ring Cycle.” “Really? It’s my 29^th“. “Do you remember the outrageous 2013 Bayreuth when Castorf presented Siegfried on Mount Rushmore with the heads of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao?”

A Ring neophyte – I’ve experienced only one full cycle, at the Met in 2019 – I drifted to a corner with a coffee to contemplate my lack of experience. I was eavesdropping on what are known in the trade as “Ringheads”. They follow Wagner with the same messianic ferocity as kids follow Ragnarök Odyssey on their Gameboys.

The joy of Longborough’s Ring Cycle is its purity. Wagner wrote the Gesamtkunstwerk – his complete artwork, drawing on all mediums – score and libretto, as the work of his life. You know what? When Wagner is allowed to speak to his audience, as Negus and Lane ensure, the characters pierce the heart. The unravelling tale is spellbinding. Directors with big egos to satisfy only get in the way. 

No need to be a Ringhead, parsing the work to death. The Longborough crowd was a mixed crew of opera afficionados, local and from further afield. Such as my Picnic Marquee companion, a doctor from Perthshire. 

The Longborough team is fastidious. Close to the performance date I received the following email from Gill Powell, Membership and Legacy Manager. 

“Looking forward to welcoming you to Longborough this week. I notice that you’ve booked a table in the Picnic Marquee. Another gentleman has also booked a table and is by himself. Would you be happy to share?”

I doubt there is any other opera house on the planet that pays such attention to its patrons. Of course, I said “Yes”. Little did I know that Powell was psychic, because when we greeted each other, my dining companion was wearing a kilt that neatly counterbalanced my tartan troos. She had sussed out two “Scotheads”. He proved a boon companion. 

It would be unwise to attempt to summate sixteen hours of Sturm und Drang Wagner plot. My tolerance levels have been maxed by Donald Trump’s 92-minute acceptance speech in Milwaukee. Never mind yours. A handy Opera North synopsis of the whole operatic caboose can be found here.

But for non Ringheads of an irreverent bent I recommend an iconoclastic alternative. In the 1950s English born comedienne Anna Russell enjoyed success on Broadway. A highlight of her career is a 1953 musically accompanied monologue summarising the Ring in 30 minutes. 

Russell pumps out one-liners – “When Siegfried falls in love with Gutrune in Götterdämmerung, she’s the first woman he’s met who isn’t his aunt”. Too true. An over-serious interpretation of the Ring is ripe for satire. 

Why is Lane’s Ring Cycle so engaging? She lets the characters sing the music without the production subverting the plot. Wagner first. Director second. The set is relatively simple – as it must be in a small house – and consistent through the cycle. 

A filmed backdrop provides the effects of the turbulent Rhine and galloping horses as needed. It is an other-worldly landscape upon which Gods and humans will work out their differences.

Lane is into directing detail. As in the scene in Siegfried when Mime, the foster father who is determined to exploit our hero who recovers the ring from the giant/dragon Fafner. He is going to kill Siegried. 

A Woodbird – is it Wotan in feathers? – has appeared and when Siegfried is splashed with dragon’s blood when he extracts his faithful sword, Nothung, from Fafner’s body he can understand the bird and its warning about Mime’s dastardly intentions.

Siegfried can also interpret the real intentions behind Mime’s weaselly supportive words. I’ve seen Siegfried many times and this important moment has flashed by unnoticed. 

Lane got the point over brilliantly by having Mime dance a Rumpelstiltskin jig of frustration while, despite himself, his true words poured out, warning Siegfried. ‘Damn! Did I really say that?’ Essential to understanding the plot – and hilarious. Believe it or not, Siegfried is chock full of wit.

Often Waldvogel, the Woodbird, is heard only offstage. Lane’s decision to introduce the character to the audience – Waldvogel sings some delightful music and has a vital catalytic role – was spot on. Soprano, Fflur Wynn, nailed the role. 

The cast was superb. I will single out Lee Bissett, but the starting point for finding them all is here. Bravi tutti!

The Scottish soprano inhabited Brünnhilde. From the moment of first appearing in Die Walküre, leaning black-clad defiantly – no horned helmets, deo gratias – into the audience with her sisters, through the touchingly naive scene when she is rescued by Siegfried from her circle of fire, clueless about what the physical act of love implies for humans, to the end when she rides fearlessly into that fire.

Bissett’s voice can carry off the taxing role, but it is her consummate artistry that enthrals the audience. Brünhillde on her helter-skelter journey. Through her banishment by Wotan, rescue by Siegfried, disillusion when – drugged to the eyeballs – he forgets her in Götterdämmerung and ultimate resolution when she is reunited with him in the ride into his funeral pyre.

I hope during the run there were casting directors in the crowd. Bissett has poured everything she has into mastering the difficult role of Brünhillde. It was a privilege to see and hear her at Longborough. Audiences further afield would thrill to share our experience. She deserves the opportunity to ride Grane, her trusty steed, across other stages.

Another touch. In the final moments of the closing scene Lane reintroduced Wotan and Siegfried to witness the ending of their world. She closed the circle. Ingenious. Now, Amy Lane is in Copenhagen as director of Copenhagen Opera Festival. Reports will follow! 

Next season, after its Ring Cycle Hail Mary throw to opera goal line, Longborough Festival Opera will feature four productions: Debussy’s atmospheric Pelléas et Mellisande; the UK premiere of Avner Dorman’s Wahnfried: The Birth of the Wagner Cult – Go, Ringheads! – Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. 

Great line up. But this year’s triumphant Ring marks a festival season that will remain a benchmark in Longborough’s history. Whatever would Jack Wilsher have made of the heights the little boy, with whom he walked the Cotswold tracks so many years ago, has scaled?

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