With its revival of Tristan und Isolde Longborough is back with what it does at its very best

With the dream husband and wife team of conductor Antony Negus and director, Carmen Jakobi, this long-awaited revival of Longborough’s 2017 production of Tristan und Isolde more than lives up to expectations. For many years, the Negus musical journey at Longborough with Martin and Lizzie Graham did in his own words ‘provided a marvellous opportunity to build an ensemble of singers and mould a fine group of players into a cohesive and responsive orchestra on our continuing Wagner journey’. Now this continues, with Polly Graham as Artistic Director. With a first attempt at Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg next year, this is a golden age for Wagner-lovers at Longborough. It is trite to suggest Longborough is the UK’s Bayreuth, just accept that this location, this team and its supporters have built a venue and its reputation. As for Negus he has now had a long overdue and much-deserved CBE and is relinquishing his role as Music Director this year, Christopher Ward takes over in 2027 when Negus becomes Conductor Laureate.

Opening night on Saturday, thankfully before an anticipated heatwave, was a glorious event, many in the audience standing to applaud the remarkable staying-power of Negus. He knows exactly when to power up the orchestra and when the subtler moments are needed; his charges in the pit responded wonderfully. All now have a short break until 2 June when a run of just five performances begins. Do find a ticket if you can, this is one of the finest Jacobi/Negus collaborations since 2017. The fateful course of events that leads to the climactic moment and tragic end of the opera must count as one of the most bizarre in either historical or fictional stories. The Jacobi direction ensures total focus on those final words ‘… unbewusst, – höchste Lust!’ which translates to ‘oblivion, the greatest pleasure’ or ‘supreme bliss, highest joy’. Negus held the orchestra in suspension for those final chords before the audience’s appreciative eruption. In his contribution to the excellent programme notes, the late Michael Tanner described the work as ‘No wonder Wagner has been so often called a magician, for his music in Tristan bewitches us while the action, the text, show that love is not the beautiful dream but the most exquisite illusion’. This performance was one of those magical occasions!

Peter Wedd (Tristan) returns to repeat his success of 2017; Catherine Carby (Brangäne) repeats her success of 2015; her mezzo-soprano voice is so convincing as she actively supports Isolde; both have lost not one ounce of their energy in the last decade. They know their roles intimately; they are the foundation on which this production builds. Catharine Woodward uses her recent experience of Bayreuth (Gerhilde) and earlier concert productions of the second acts of Tristan and Parsifal to create a most convincing Isolde, one which is believable and full of emotion, most especially in the last act with her singing of the Liebestod when she finally recognises Tristan was indeed mortally wounded. Wedd’s energy can only be described as him having an inexhaustible reservoir of stamina; he commanded the stage, his performance at times electrifying. Having sung the title role in Peter Grimes he fully understands the importance of the role in depicting Tristan as an authoritative individual. Woodward claims she adores the role of Isolde and her Longborough debut is one with which she can be extremely pleased. Her soprano voice has blossomed into a fine Wagnerian one and she is already in demand at the Royal Opera House and Regents Opera in Wagner roles.

Set designs can be very complicated and physically challenging for those on the stage. Director Carmen Jacobi and designer Kimie Nakano brings a very fresh approach to this 2026 production. Gone are her somewhat controversial dancers of the 2015 production. This year, the sets are refreshingly simple, a plinth on which much of the action takes place, a seascape with one sail as a backdrop and a woodland scene with one large tree trunk. New this time is the use of the prelude, a sort of musical summary of the entire work, during which Tristan and Isolde stumble to the ground having drunk a potion. They face each other as they will do again at the end of the five-hour love song. Nakano deserves much credit for these simple sets as she clearly understands audiences for Wagner at Longborough are there to especially hear the orchestra and the singers. Another asset at Longborough is Ben Ormerod’s lighting plot with one spot on the plinth in Act I and very subtle changes in light levels with some added colour maintaining the simplicity theme.

Many audience members have enjoyed the Negus excellence in other productions, not least the widely admired sold-out Longborough Ring cycles. It is quite exhausting to watch – on one of the monitors positioned in the rafters – Negus conduct as he winds up the orchestra!

High levels of competence throughout the company make this all compelling watching and listening. Robert Hayward (Kurwenal) is Tristan’s determined minder, not always a man of integrity. Alistair Miles (King Marke) performs well as a troubled man, with Brian Smith Walters (Melot), Peter Bronder (Shepherd) and Tobias Campos (Sailor) contributing much to the overall success. All are supported by the remarkable Longborough Festival Opera Orchestra led by Barbara O’Reilly. Horns and the wind section were superb. The trumpets playing from side boxes, welcoming the arrival of the King, were stupendous and those strings sustained the magic of Wagner’s score throughout.

Clive Peacock | 22/06/2026

Anthony Negus conducts a vigorous, vivid Tristan und Isolde in the Cotswolds

Aficionados talk about Anthony Negus in hushed tones. The renowned Wagnerian once assisted the likes of Reginald Goodall, Charles Mackerras and Pierre Boulez and worked at Bayreuth. As Music Director at Longborough since 2001, he put the festival on the map, including acclaimed Ring cycles, earning it the moniker “the Bayreuth of the Cotswolds”. Negus turned 80 last month, when he was decorated with a CBE in the King’s Birthday Honours. In his final summer as MD – he takes on the Conductor Laureate mantle from 2027 – he is conducting an opera that is similarly revered, Tristan und Isolde.

Although Negus was a protégé of Goodall, he’s certainly no slouch in the pit. His style – I could spy him from my seat on a monitor – is energetic, arms well above his head, tracing a batonless, fluid beat. His tempi were often urgent, drawing muscular playing that bristled with tension. A seating capacity of 500 – less than Wigmore Hall, temple of chamber music – means that imperfections can be exposed, such as the approximate violin intonation in the very opening phrase of the Act 1 prelude, but the playing of the Longborough Festival Opera Orchestra was superb, still surging and swelling six hours later in the concluding Liebestod.

The staging is by Carmen Jakobi, Negus’ wife. When it was new in 2015, it featured dancer doubles and was criticised for its visual clutter. The dancing was jettisoned two years later and the result is largely abstract – much of the action in Tristan is psychological anyway – stripping the work down to its bare essentials. Kimie Nakano’s frugal designs – black blocks as barque, tower and rock – are a nod towards Japanese theatre, and props are at a bare minimum: a box of potions, a torch, swords. Ben Ormerod’s lighting plot projects colour onto a huge sail of a backcloth: cool blue, lilac, sickly green or the glow of dawn breaking. A silhouette suffices for Kareol, Tristan’s castle.

Unshackled by any directorial concept that leaves the audience scratching their heads, the production’s simplicity focused the attention onto the singing, much of it remarkable. Peter Wedd hurled himself into the role of Tristan, which he created in this production in 2015. His sound is very baritonal, forceful and rarely below a mezzoforte dynamic, but his athletic, thrusting portrayal was admirable, particularly his tour de force as the crazed, dying man of Act 3.

Opposite him was the magnificent Isolde of Catharine Woodward, at their rapt best in the orgasmic length of the Act 2 duet, he unpinning her hair for “O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe”. Woodward’s soprano is attractive and powerful, evenly produced across the registers, with thrilling top notes that have force, but are focused. She was still sounding fresh in the radiant Liebestod.

Catherine Carby’s Brangäne, another 2015 survivor, was classily sung, particularly her haunting off-stage warning to the lovers in Act 2, while Robert Hayward’s gnarly Kurwenal was deeply felt, his relationship with Tristan extremely touching. Alastair Miles’ beetle black König Marke snarled effectively, Brian Smith Walters spat his consonants venomously as Melot and I enjoyed Peter Bronder’s sympathetic turn as the Shepherd.

A fine achievement and one to satisfy even the most demanding Wagner pilgrims who had journeyed from far and wide to the Cotswolds.

Mark Pullinger | 03 Juli 2026

It’s certainly a good showing but perhaps over-reliance on the ‘Wagner’ has caused the quality of some elements to slip

Wagner’s romantic epic returns for the third time to the ex-chicken shed in the Cotswolds. Longborough Festival Opera has carved out its Wagnerian niche in the ever-crowded opera-in-a-field-during-the-summer-within-easy-reach-of-London market. Although Longborough has been going for years, this is the first fully staged Wagner I’ve seen at the Festival, so I was justifiably curious about how it could be pulled off in a 500-seat theatre. It is directed and conducted by the husband-and-wife team, Carmen Jakobi and Anthony Negus respectively, who are certainly no strangers either to Wagner or to Wagner at Longborough. I’m happy to say that Wagner does work at Longborough; however, it has many pitfalls, not all of which were avoided.

For a modest-sized stage, it was wise to go for the minimal approach. Designer Kimie Nakano’s set was a black stage featuring a few black boxes, with a gauze set far upstage which was creatively lit to create shadows and show the passing of day to night (a key element of the opera). And whilst Tristan is a big show, it is also a very intimate one and that intimacy was the strength of this production. However, whilst it was minimally staged, it seemed it was also minimally directed. Often characters would run out on stage and be left with little to do, we were left with a lot of awkward ‘waiting-for-cue’ acting that really hampered the pacing. We had some lovely tableaux but moments like Tristan and Isolde’s ‘miraculous’ resurrection in Act I and the ‘Rette dich, Tristan!’ interruption of the Love Duet in Act II felt laboured and lacked dramatic momentum.

Unfortunately, this was also present in the music. The ethereal motif of fate that forms the famous prelude was slightly stunted by the cellos’ intonation. In fact the tuning of the strings throughout was not something you’d expect to hear in an opera house of Longborough’s stature. Certainly a very capable orchestra, it had some glorious moments but most tutti string passages felt uneven. The musical pacing itself felt a little uneasy – the Act II love duet dragged a bit and affected the entire act. It felt one rehearsal away from opening night. I did however very much enjoy not trying to stage the preludes, it let the music do the talking rather than trying to busy us with plot.

The cast however were a powerhouse ensemble, with Wagner coursing through their veins but also with a firm awareness of the size of house and never over-sang the intimacy of the production. Peter Wedd is a formidable Tristan, his rough-around-the-edges approach was thrilling. Many a Wagnerian is accused of planting their feet and singing for four hours but Wedd was frenetic, physical and very engaging. His Act III tour-de-force was immense and the zenith of an enigmatic and thoughtful performance. Catherine Woodward’s Isolde was monumental. The power and energy in not only her voice but her presence on stage was arresting. She brought a palpable chemistry and an unfaltering intensity to the role. Alongside her nuanced command of the German text, Woodward made it look easy (and it really really isn’t!). I must also say that despite my praise for the cast, no one was spared from the sparser moments in the blocking…

All in all, an enjoyable afternoon. Wagner’s revolutionary opera plunges us into the darkest and most dangerous depths of love and obsession. It’s certainly a good showing but perhaps over-reliance on the ‘Wagner’ has caused the quality of some elements to slip.

Jonathan Whiting | 22 June 2026

Psychological Insight Allied with an Enthralling Musical Account of Tristan and Isolde at Longborough

Wagner described his epoch-making Tristan und Isolde as a monument erected to the ‘most beautiful dream’ of happiness in love, implying that this is an illusion lying beyond everyday reality, probably never to be reached in this world or life. Carmen Jakobi’s production for Longborough (revived from 2015 and 2017) is inspired by Jungian psychology and resides in the half-light between day and night – that realm of transition which the two central protagonists often talk about navigating in their desperate search away from the glare of the former where their illicit passion can’t be tolerated or understood, to the darkness of the latter where they can sink into eternal fulfilment and oblivion anonymously. The minimalist set is simple and devoid of obviously functional objects, evidently inspired by Wieland Wagner’s post-War productions at Bayreuth. Even the basic symbols of Wagner’s original scenography such as the boat of Act One, and the garden and trees of the Second, are largely dispensed with. It is a setting for the ‘choreography of souls’ as Jakobi puts it, unfolding in a virtually timeless world rather than as an outward narrative subject to the ordinary rules of cause and effect.

But for all that – and captivating as it undeniably is – there are still enough pointers in this production to suggest that there is a developmental process at work, even if not a straightforwardly linear one, with past and future blending in a vague present of dimly perceived concepts. The implied boat’s sail of Act One forms a backdrop to the whole opera, like a veil or gauze lit in chiaroscuro, hypnotising us into the drama’s noumenal world during the Prelude with its subtle shifts of colour in a spectrum of blue and purple, the latter an abstraction of the sea which is Wagner’s allegory for the same psychological journey. Although the sail does obscure Tristan until Isolde calls him to confront her, when lifted for the first time it reveals his form in silhouette, an elemental figure of the masculine to encounter Isolde’s feminine; tellingly, it occurs at the point in which she recalls the moment when she had been ready to stab him for killing her fiancé Morold, but their eyes met in a first awkward act of love. As a metaphorical veil of the mind or memory, it is a screen which blocks out some of the hateful light – and experience of the everyday – which Tristan and Isolde seek to escape; or serves as a partition beyond which everyday reality can pass and be sealed off as the lovers come closer to their desired obliteration, for instance the slab that stands as some sort of trunk or tower in Act Two then appears as on the other side as merely the shadow of a watch tower in Act Three.

In the context of Schopenhauer’s philosophy of the negation of the will which exerted a profound influence upon Wagner in the composition of this work, it is striking that the protagonists’ fateful drinking of the potion at the climactic moment of Act One (which they believe to be of death, but is really the love potion) is pre-empted by their miming of that action at the equivalent musical moment in the Prelude, as though it is something they have been actively willing for some time past, rather than forced upon them by dint of desperate circumstances in the heat of the moment before the boat lands in Cornwall to meet King Marke. Furthermore, whereas in Wagner’s scenario for the fight between Melot and Tristan in Act Two the latter merely allows his sword to drop for Melot to strike him, here Tristan then deliberately directs Melot’s sword and wilfully thrusts it into his side to deliver the deadly blow that, evidently, he has long been seeking. The final indication of the lovers’ willed journey to deathly transcendence is that Isolde doesn’t simply swoon over Tristan’s corpse during the Liebestod – called by Wagner her ‘transfiguration’ in any case – but has her arms half raised, and eyes and head tilted upwards, exactly like the figure of Mary in Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin, the famous altarpiece of the Frari church at Venice, which it is known inspired Wagner while he worked on the opera in that city. That gesture itself is also foreshadowed by Tristan’s similar benedictory stance over Isolde’s recumbent figure in a passionate moment during the Act Two duet, again evoking an ambiguous – but no less meaningful – switching between forwards and backwards, future and past in this vision of the work. Despite the generally elusive and rarefied atmosphere, as though wrapped up in the lovers’ trance, this production is so much more psychologically insightful and suggestive than, say, the rather static interpretation of their dream in Nicholas Lehnhoff’s production for Glyndebourne.

Vocal performances are equally purposeful. Peter Wedd’s Tristan exudes considerable vigour, even in Act Three as he languishes; his performance is grounded in a supple voice that often has the solid tone of a baritone reaching up into the tenor range with shades of such a Heldentenor as Wolfgang Windgassen. Catharine Woodward displays steely ardour and resolve as Isolde, cutting through the music’s white heat decisively, and holding back until the Liebestod for more lyrical tenderness, even if her physical rapport with Tristan on stage is muted.

Catherine Carby’s Brangäne yields nothing vocally to Isolde – she is bold and forthright, where the character is often depicted musically as more retiring, but melds her soaring legato seamlessly with the orchestra in the two passages of Act Two as she keeps watch over the lovers. Robert Hayward’s Kurwenal is likewise a stalwart servant to Tristan, suitably gloating in taunting Isolde on the way to Cornwall in Act One, and providing earnest support to the ailing knight in Act Three where he also gives physical comfort in a closer embrace with his master than any in which the latter and Isolde engage at any point. Alastair Miles is also a less resigned and wearied Marke than some, expressing not only disappointment but positive anxiety and bewilderment in his monologue, and palpable grief in the closing section of Act Three.

Anthony Negus (deservedly made a CBE in this year’s honours list) conducts a masterful account of the score that is infamous for its apparent lack of structure and almost endless, fruitless search for resolution. He doesn’t simply preside with a commanding sweep over the music’s continuous search, but shapes and points its direction even when it proceeds at a comparatively slow and seemingly aimless tempo. In other hands the dangerously slow way with the opening bars may become unstuck, but here it maintains unfaltering tension, as subsequently throughout. That also papers over the odd crack in the orchestral sonority when the already smaller forces of the Longborough Festival Orchestra are reduced to a smaller chamber ensemble for quieter passages and the breaks between notes in Wagner’s ever-extending melos become audible. But in general, the orchestral and choral forces are proportionate to the compact space of the auditorium so that there is otherwise no loss of grandeur or power in the music’s overall thrust, nor in the rigour of their execution.

In no sense does this production’s smaller scale register as a compromise of Wagner’s colossal, overwhelming vision. If anything, it affords the audience the rare privilege of being brought right within the heady, charged bubble of Tristan and Isolde’s passionate world, which usually plays out only in much larger theatres. This performance would be a creditable achievement by a house of any size; on this more intimate level it’s an extraordinary experience, as any performance of Tristan should be.

Curtis Rogers | June 2026