The Longborough Wagner Club
The Longborough Wagner Club is an exclusive group of philanthropists, committed to supporting the ambitious and long-standing tradition of presenting the works of, and inspired by, Richard Wagner at Longborough.
Anthony Negus will be the Club’s Founder President. Its distinguished ambassadors include Stephen Fry, Sir John Tomlinson, Susan Bullock CBE and Alan Rusbridger.
The Club will cement Longborough’s reputation as the birthplace and training ground for future generations of British Wagnerians, and secure an ongoing place for Wagner’s work within the Festival programme. Additionally, the Club will support works heavily connected to or influenced by the monumental cultural figure of Richard Wagner, such as Avner Dorman's Wahnfried and Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (being presented at Longborough in 2025).
Anthony Negus, Longborough's Music Director and the Club's Founder President says:
"I am thrilled with the launch of the Longborough Wagner Club, in recognition of the Festival's longstanding commitment to the interpretation of the composer's rich oeuvre and in celebration of 25 years of my time as Music Director."
Club benefits:
Being in the Wagner Club will give you access behind the scenes of our Wagnerian work, including rehearsals, exclusive dinners, and events with directors, conductors and ambassadors. There are also opportunities to enjoy early model presentations of sets and costumes by creative teams, as well as 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).
Joining the club
The Wagner Club is for individual philanthropists, with minimum gifts of £10,000 p/a (or minimum £5,000 for existing Longborough members).
To join, contact Membership & Legacy Manager Gill Powell: email gill@lfo.org.uk
The taxable benefit is £150. Any amounts given over and above the benefits value are given as a donation and are eligible for Gift Aid and higher rate tax relief.
No other ‘country house’ opera company has risen to such a challenge, not even Glyndebourne... the stamina, the superb diction, the focused musicianship: all of these served as a model of the best this daring, innovative Ring cycle could produce
Opera magazine
Wagner at Longborough
Longborough - often called the English Bayreuth in the press - is proud to be the only UK summer festival to have successfully staged Wagner's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen three times, as well as acclaimed productions of Tristan und Isolde, Tannhaüser and Der fliegende Holländer. Longborough has a celebrated track record of nurturing the next generation of British Wagnerian singers (often in partnership with Mastersingers), including Rachel Nicholls, Paul Carey Jones, Alwyn Mellor, Jonathan Stoughton, Lee Bisset, Mark Le Brocq and Katie Lowe.
The Club is launched following the triumphant 2024 season, which saw the culmination of their most recent Ring cycle directed by Amy Lane and conducted by Longborough's longstanding Music Director and legendary Wagnerian Anthony Negus. With modest resources and no public subsidy, this small charitable company welcomed operagoers from across the world.
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-piece orchestra, this was a compelling, moving cycle
Classical Voice America
Wagner and Anthony Negus
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.
The Wagner community in these islands will always have huge cause to celebrate the serendipity that has brought an artist with the deep musicianship and life-long engagement of Anthony Negus together with an opera festival of seemingly boundless ambition
Wagner Journal
