‘Das Rheingold’ with a Twist: Kate Hopkins, Christopher Wintle and Barry Millington report on a staging with Dickensian overtones at Longborough

Review of Das Rheingold, directed Lane, conducted Negus, Longborough, 2019.

November 2019, Volume 13, Number 3, 71–8.

On 12 June 2019, the London Evening Standard hailed Wagner at Longborough as ‘world class’: and indeed with Tristan und Isolde (2015–17), Tannhäuser (2016), Der fliegende Holländer (2018) and a Ring cycle presented first in four parts (2008–12) and then as a whole (2013), this small and relatively new opera house tucked into the hills in Gloucestershire can boast a commitment to Wagner that many established houses could well envy. 2019 marks the inauguration of a new Ring cycle again introduced in parts before being presented as a whole. The conductor, as always, is Anthony Negus. The ensuing reports look first at what Longborough offers for those involved, and second at the dramatic and musical thinking behind its new staging of Das Rheingold. A critical appraisal follows.