About Anthony

Anthony Negus is one of the leading Wagnerian conductors of our day. He is the longstanding Music Director of Longborough Festival Opera (LFO), where in June / July 2024 he conducted three enthusiastically received cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen (director Amy Lane) which has been filmed, following 5 sell-out performances of Götterdämmerung in 2023. During his many years with LFO, he has established himself as one of the most perceptive and original conductors of the Wagner repertoire, leading to the legendary 2013 Ring cycle, (directed by Alan Privett), Tannhäuser (also directed by Privett), Tristan und Isolde (directed by Carmen Jakobi) and Der fliegende Holländer (directed by Thomas Guthrie). The 2017 revival of Tristan und Isolde met with especial critical and audience acclaim. In the same year, the London Wagner Society awarded Anthony Negus the Goodall Award for ‘his devotion to the works of Richard Wagner’. For LFO, Negus has also conducted highly praised productions of Die Zauberflöte and Ariadne auf Naxos.

2023 has seen him give two highly acclaimed cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen for Melbourne Opera (MO). This was preceded by a concert performance of Siegfried, and productions of Die Walküre (in 2022) and Das Rheingold (in 2021). For MO he has also conducted Fidelio (2020), Der fliegende Holländer (2019) and Tristan und Isolde (2018), for which he won a coveted Green Room Award for best conductor.

Elsewhere, recent appearances have included Un ballo in maschera for Chelsea Opera Group in 2023, Der fliegende Holländer for Grange Park Opera with Sir Bryn Terfel and Rachel Nicholls in 2022, and a guest performance of Die Walküre for English National Opera in 2021. Other guest appearances have included Lulu for the Fondazione Haydn di Bolzano e Trento, Italy, two Beethoven concerts with the George Enescu Orchestra in the Athenaeum in Bucharest, and Parsifal, Der fliegende Holländer and a concert of American music in Lübeck, a performance of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for Glyndebourne Festival, and Parsifal with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at the Wellington Festival.

For Welsh National Opera he has conducted more than 150 performances in a wide repertoire, including works by Beethoven, Berg, Gluck, Janáček, James MacMillan (The Sacrifice, broadcast by the BBC and released as a recording by Chandos), Martinů, Mussorgsky, Richard Strauss, Wagner, Weber and, especially, Mozart. Particular highlights of his work with WNO have included Parsifal and several of Richard Strauss’s operas. As an assistant conductor, he worked with Pierre Boulez on Pelléas et Mélisande, with Reginald Goodall on Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal and The Valkyrie, and with Sir Richard Armstrong, Sir Charles Mackerras, Carlo Rizzi, Mark Wigglesworth and Vladimir Jurowski.

Anthony attended Stowe School, studied clarinet & piano at the Royal College of Music, read Music at Christ Church Oxford, gained opera conducting and répétiteur experience at the Else Mayer-Lismann Opera Workshop and the London Opera Centre. He studied conducting with Franco Ferrara in Sienna and with George Hurst in the UK. He made his conducting debut in Wuppertal with d’Albert’s Tiefland, and worked as an assistant conductor at Bayreuth Festival and in Hamburg.

Forthcoming productions:

February 2025 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Melbourne Opera, director Suzanne Chaundy

July 2025 Pelléas et Mélisande, Longborough Festival Opera, UK, director Jenny Ogilvie

2026 Tristan und Isolde, Longborough Festival Opera, UK, director Carmen Jakobi

2027 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, LFO UK, director Polly Graham

2028 Siegfried, Grange Park Opera UK, director Charles Edwards

2029 Götterdämmerung, Grange Park Opera UK, director Charles Edwards