Martin Graham 1942-2025
We are sad to report the death of Martin Graham, the co-founder of Longborough Festival Opera. He was a good friend to Wagner fans everywhere and particularly with our own society. He visited us, with his wife, Lizzie, before the pandemic, to talk to us about the beginnings of the festival. We send our condolences to Lizzie and the family. There will be an empty space at this summer’s festival, which they founded in 1991. Most people thought at the time that they had taken leave of their senses but they proved their doubters wrong from day one and certainly in 2013 with three complete cycles of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, the only UK opera house to perform it in Wagner’s bi-centenary year. Longborough is as much a part of summer now as Glyndebourne, Wimbledon or complaints about the weather. The ‘Little Bayreuth in the Cotswolds’ goes from strength to strength – thank you, Martin, from all of us.
Photograph courtesy of LFO.