Longborough Festival Opera

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Longborough Festival Opera started life in 1991 as Banks Fee Opera. After a series of chamber music concerts in the drawing room of our house, Banks Fee, we decided to invite Travelling Opera, a small touring opera company to give two performances with a small orchestra on a temporary stage in the courtyard of the stable block in aid of Sue Ryder and Barnado’s. The original audience was mainly local supporters of the charities and about £3000 was raised after costs and including donations which was divided between the two charities.

The opera evenings, with picnic interval, were very popular and we were begged to continue! Until 1998, our relationship was exclusively with Travelling Opera, whose productions of well-known operas in English were much enjoyed by our steadily increasing audience which grew from a total of 400 in 1991 to 1600 in 1997. Over that period, Banks Fee Opera presented Cosi fan tutte, The Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville, La Bohème, Don Giovanni, La Traviata, The Magic Flute and Carmen. Longborough Festival Opera was founded after our move to New Banks Fee, where we converted a barn into a theatre, using seats from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, which were being discarded during the process of its recent refurbishment.