Minimal Props, Maximal Achievement: Barry Millington hails the successful completion of Longborough’s new ‘Ring’

It’s a curious fact that anyone wanting to experience the complete Ring this year under one of the world’s leading Wagner interpreters, Anthony Negus, would have to have travelled not to London, Berlin or New York but rather to a converted jail two hours’ drive from Melbourne, in the Australian state of Victoria, where Negus conducted two of the three cycles staged in March and April in the modestly sized (just under 1000 seats) Ulumburra Theatre, Bendigo. Alternatively they could have waited until 2024 to hear Negus direct the Ring in the repurposed chicken shed in the small village of Longborough in the Cotswolds.