composer of operas, the principal English advocate of the theories of music drama expounded by Richard Wagner.

Boughton studied at the Royal College of Music in 1900 but was otherwise self-taught. He had the idea of writing a series of music dramas based on Arthurian legends and of creating a festival theatre for their performance at Glastonbury. (A few performances took place in 1914.) His most notable success was the tuneful Romantic opera The Immortal Hour (1913), which ran for 216 performances in London. His other operas include The Queen of Cornwall (1924), The Lily Maid (1934), and Galahad (1944). With Reginald Buckley, his partner in the Glastonbury scheme, he published a book, The Music Drama of the Future (1908).