The Wagnerian: Die Walkure in a Church: The St Endellion Summer Festival, 26 July

It is a good year for Wagner in the UK - even on the Festival "scene": Glyndebourne, Grange Park and now St Endellion - with St Endellion being perhaps the most extraordinary

The semi-professional, Saint Endellion Summer Festival, was founded 53 years ago by musical priest, Roger Gaunt, when he invited a group of college friends to help him renovate St Endellion’s derelict rectory – one of the last surviving prebendal houses in England. Slowly it grew and evolved from a group of friends putting on small scale concerts and an annual play to include an orchestra and a chorus. And from the ranks of its enthusiastic participants emerged a young Cambridge graduate and organist called Richard Hickox who took over from Roger Gaunt as Artistic Director in the mid Seventies, when he also instituted a sister festival at Easter.

This year it will put on what must surely be one of its most daring performances yet: a concert performance of Wagner's .Die Walkure - the first time that it will be performed in Cornwall. Desbite it's semi professional status the festival has managed to put together an impressive cast (see below) including Susan Bullock and Grange Park Opera's Tristan, Richard Berkeley-Steele. There will be three performances: twice in the church, (July 30 and August 5) and once in Truro’s Hall for Cornwall (August 2).

Cast:

Martyn Brabbins (conductor)