23-04-2025
Martin Graham obituary: Longborough Festival Opera founder
Watching Norse gods, incestuous twins and rampant Valkyries play out their cosmic drama in a converted chicken barn is one of life's more unlikely pleasures, but this is what drew Martin Graham to build his own Valhalla, perched high on a ridge in the middle of the sleepy Cotswolds. 'The whole project is blissfully barmy,' Richard Morrison wrote in The Times of Longborough Festival Opera. In a way, that was the point. Besides, Graham insisted that chickens breed better under chandeliers.
The company began life in 1991 as Banks Fee Opera, presenting concerts in the drawing room of his home on the edge of Longborough, near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire. Before long the Travelling Opera Company was visiting, performing on a temporary stage in the stable courtyard.
