Longborough Festival Opera 2015

Longborough Festival Opera has announced its 2015 season. Following on from last year's Ring Cycle, they are performing Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Again Anthony Negus conducts with Peter Wedd (who sang Lohengrin for Welsh National Opera in 2013) and Neal Cooper (Nick in Opera Holland Park's La Fanciulla del West in 2014) sharing the role of Tristan, and Rachel Nicholls (Eva in ENO's recent Mastersingers) and Lee Bisset sharing Isolde. The director is Carmen Jakobi who was associate director on Longborough's Ring Cycle.

The other operas of the season form an interesting contrast, with Verdi's Rigoletto and Donizetti's Don Pasquale. Rigoletto will be conducted by Gad Kadosh, a young Israeli conductor first spotted by Bernard Haitink and currently working at Theater Heidelberg. The production will be directed by Caroline Clegg, (the founder of Feelgood Theatre and director of the Okeanos Ensemble's Tokaido Road), with Martin Kronthaler and Andrea Tweedale in the leading roles. Don Pasquale is conducted by Thomas Blunt with a young cast including David Stout (Sancho Panza in Grange Park Opera's Don Quichotte in 2014) as Don Pasquale, Susanna Hurrell as Norina  (Erisbe in Cavalli's L'Ormindo at the Globe in 2014), Gary Griffiths (Ned Keene in Grange Park Opera's Peter Grimes in 2014) as Malatesta and Jesus Alvarez (currently playing Paco in Opera North's La Vida Breve) as Ernesto. The opera will be directed by Alan Privett, who was responsible for the Longborough Ring Cycle.

There will also be a young artists production with counter-tenor Jake Arditti (who sang in Handel's Agrippina and Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea with ETO in 2013) taking the title role in Handel's Xerxes, conducted by Jeremy Silver (who conducts ETO's forthcoming production of Donizetti's The Wild Man of the West Indies) and directed by Jenny Miller with a young production team also, including designer Faye Bradley and lighting designer Anna Sboukou.

All the productions take place in Longborough's intimate, 500 seater, theatre set in the Cotswolds. Full information from the Longborough Festival website.