Rupert Christiansen meets Martin and Lizzie Graham, the couple who created an internationally renowned opera festival in their back garden.
“It’s my toy, and I have a lot of fun playing with it,” confesses Martin Graham, as he walks me round the cattle shed he has expanded and converted into a bijou opera house. Situated in a corner of his small estate on the fringe of the Gloucestershire village of Longborough, this shed (seating capacity: 500 and, beautified by a pediment on which stands statues of Wagner, flanked by Mozart and Verdi) is the hub of a remarkable summer festival that has earned itself an international reputation over the last decade and trumped those critics who thought nobody would come.
This is no rich man’s vanity project. Graham, 73, isn’t some arriviste banker parading his wealth to his metropolitan chums, but a self-made man, the son of a clerk for the RAF, born and raised locally. Having started his career in the village as a builder’s mate, he went on to become a successful property developer. Yet he has remained loyal to his roots, living in a handsome and spacious house, designed in traditional Cotswold style, that he helped to construct himself - among his many manual skills, he’s an accomplished bricklayer... Keep reading on The Telegraph
“It’s my toy, and I have a lot of fun playing with it,” confesses Martin Graham, as he walks me round the cattle shed he has expanded and converted into a bijou opera house. Situated in a corner of his small estate on the fringe of the Gloucestershire village of Longborough, this shed (seating capacity: 500 and, beautified by a pediment on which stands statues of Wagner, flanked by Mozart and Verdi) is the hub of a remarkable summer festival that has earned itself an international reputation over the last decade and trumped those critics who thought nobody would come.
This is no rich man’s vanity project. Graham, 73, isn’t some arriviste banker parading his wealth to his metropolitan chums, but a self-made man, the son of a clerk for the RAF, born and raised locally. Having started his career in the village as a builder’s mate, he went on to become a successful property developer. Yet he has remained loyal to his roots, living in a handsome and spacious house, designed in traditional Cotswold style, that he helped to construct himself - among his many manual skills, he’s an accomplished bricklayer... Keep reading on The Telegraph