The support of the club will ensure an ongoing place for the composer’s works, and help us to nurture British Wagnerian talent. It will also support works heavily connected to or influenced by Wagner (such as Wahnfried in 2025).
The Wagner Club is for individual philanthropists, with minimum gifts of £10,000 p/a (or £5,000 for existing Longborough members). We encourage legacy gifts to the Club.
To join, contact Membership & Legacy Manager Gill Powell: email gill@lfo.org.uk
Being in the Wagner Club will give you exclusive access behind the scenes of our Wagnerian work, including rehearsals, intimate dinners and events with directors and conductors, early model presentations of sets and costumes by creative teams, and London Studio runs of Wagner productions.
Being part of the Wagner club is separate to the benefits that come with a Longborough membership, such as priority booking. To secure early tickets to our productions you would also need to be a member of Longborough Festival Opera (see our membership levels).
no other ‘country house’ opera company has risen to such a challenge
Opera magazine
We recognise that our special history with the works of this composer needs to be honoured, and the Wagner club will secure a bedrock of support for future productions by those who are passionate about Wagner.
Longborough has long been associated with the works of Richard Wagner, presenting its first Rheingold (arr. Dove) in 1998, with the first mini Ring cycle (arr.Dove) in 2002. In 2013 we presented our first full Ring Cycle.
In 2024, Longborough Festival Opera - often called the British Bayreuth - achieved what few others have even attempted: a second new complete Ring cycle within almost a decade. With modest resources and no public subsidy, this small charitable company welcomed operagoers from across the world – and from rural counties – to three acclaimed sold-out cycles of productions that would rarely be seen outside of a big city. Longborough’s 2024 Ring was described as “a remarkable achievement” (Opera Now) – and that “the Longborough Ring Cycle can proudly take its place beside any in the world” (Prospect).
With a strong, mostly British cast and beloved Wagner conductor Anthony Negus leading a 60-pieceorchestra, this was a compelling, moving cycle
Classical Voice America
2025 marks 25 years of Anthony Negus as Longborough’s Music Director. In 2026 he will conduct Tristan und Isolde; and in 2027 we will present Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, conducted by Anthony and marking 30 years of opera in our theatre.
Longborough’s Wagner Club celebrates Anthony’s achievements as one of today’s supreme Wagnerians and Longborough’s work nurturing conductors of the future, as well as cementing the festival as the ‘British Bayreuth’.
Longborough Festival Opera’s Music Director Anthony Negus has “lived, slept, prepared and conducted Wagner all his working life” (The Times) and is one of today’s supreme Wagnerians. At the heart of Longborough’s 2024 Ring project, his “decades of experience with Wagner’s music shone through in every bar, his readings expansive and generous” (Opera Now). Anthony Negus has been central to Longborough Festival Opera's Wagnerian ambitions since his appointment in 2000, and he deserves to be recognised for his outstanding accomplishments in Longborough’s new 2024 Ring.
