Longborough Ring

[Prommer]

Is Anthony Negus going to start getting the recognition and bookings he deserves, at larger houses? I deliberately booked to hear him conduct Meistersinger at Glyndebourne in 2011 (his one date there) over Jurowski... He had prepared and coached the singers so I wanted to hear him lead the whole thing, and was not disappointed. There was also a very nice broadcast from New Zealand in 2006 when he conducted Parsifal, with Simon Neill as Parsifal and Donald McIntyre (then aged 71) as Gurnemanz.

As a pupil of Goodall's, the comparison in terms of the galley years coaching etc, before emerging blinking into the light of success, is beginning to look compelling. They are not similar in matters of tempi, however.

[ARBurton]

We can but hope - he certainly deserves it. Was that 2006 Parsifal broadcast over here?

[Prommer]

Not sure about that... There were rumours of its being issued, however...

[verismissimo]

Having now seen both Siegfried and Gotterdammerung, I can report that this Longborough Ring is IMO the finest I've been to since the legendary Goodall Ring at the Coliseum in the early 1970s.

What's more, the Brunnhilde, Rachel Nicholls, is the best sung I've heard since Rita Hunter. And she acts the role brilliantly, far better than anything Rita could muster.

The other discovery (for me) was the outstanding singing and acting of Stuart Pendred as Hagen.

Altogether memorable. Well done Longborough. I hear they will do Tristan und Isolde in 2015.

[ARBurton]

I was lucky enough to see the first cycle and was so tempted to sell the family silver to try for a ticket for the third one. (Although having said that, the weather was cooler a few weeks ago!)
You`ve highlighted one of the real benefits of Rachel Nicholls - her acting - acted everyone else off the stage, quite frankly. Mesmerising. I do hope she goes on to a world-wide career but equally hope she returns for Isolde..

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Quite so - the ON Siegfried is the latest in their on-going Ring cycle - lack of a suitable venue means that they are unable to mount a full cycle in a single year. It's been magnificent so far (Walkure last year, Rheingold in 2011)!

It's regrettable that there's "nowhere" in the north of England capable of staging the Ring. I suppose when they closed Leeds Grand Theatre for a season for refurbishment, it would have been too expensive to achieve the necessary transformation.

[verismissimo]

It's regrettable that there's "nowhere" in the north of England capable of staging the Ring. I suppose when they closed Leeds Grand Theatre for a season for refurbishment, it would have been too expensive to achieve the necessary transformation.

Nowhere with a pit for 70, Eine? That's the size of Longborough's pit. They used the version developed by Lessing in Germany for smaller houses in the 1940s.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Nowhere with a pit for 70, Eine? That's the size of Longborough's pit. They used the version developed by Lessing in Germany for smaller houses in the 1940s.

I'm not sure. The Palace Theatre in Manchester had the pit enlarged some years ago to enable the ROHO to play there, but the stage is relatively small.