Can opera really speak to new audiences on current themes on themes such as conservation or economic sustainability? Welsh National Operas MAX project suggests that it can. Penny Simpson explains how.
Opera is an artform too often associated with history and tradition. The idea that it can speak to new audiences and explore new perspectives such as topical conservation concerns, or experiments in economic sustainability is almost as far-fetched as some of operas more outlandish plotlines. But this is just what opera can achieve, according to Welsh National Opera, and the proof comes in a series of enterprising commissions that expand operas traditional repertoire through establishing links with exciting new librettists, composers and young artists.
WNO MAX was set up to take opera beyond the main stage, but its networks and achievements have also become an inspiration for what happens on the main stage, be it at the Companys home in Wales Millennium Centre, or out on tour in Wales and England. Its early success is probably best reflected in productions such as the Land, Sea, Sky Trilogy, launched on a snow-covered football pitch in Cil-y-Cwm, a tiny village in Carmarthen. (Villagers organised for a marquee to be erected on the pitch to host each subsequent production in the Trilogy). Land, Sea, Sky was a groundbreaking series of chamber operas aimed at a rural audience, with a remit to explore key conservation issues. Developed over a two-year period, it put story-telling through music at the heart of the commissioning process, an objective that appealed to the first-time libretto writers who came on board, including Gwyneth Lewis, the former National Poet of Wales. The collaboration with Cil-y-cwm also saw another rather unexpected spin-off: the village has campaigned hard to keep its community alive, an objective that residents saw strengthened through the setting up of what became known colloquially as the Cil-y-Cwm Opera House.
The Trilogy has become in many ways become the template for further commissions from WNO MAX, including new operas specifically aimed at ensemble youth opera groups. In July 2008, Welsh National Youth Opera premieres Brian Irvines The Calling of Maisy Day, an off-beat look at the call centre phenomenon that has taken hold of Waless economy since the erosion of the mining industry in the 1980s. Interestingly, the mining industry, so often used to symbolise the Welsh and their nation, comes centre stage in Carbon 12 A Choral Symphony, a brand new commission for June 2008 from award-winning composer Errollyn Wallen. Carbon 12 celebrates in music and song South Waless unique history, its landscape and people. Drawing on the praise poetry of the 6th century Welsh poet Taliesin, it gallops through many centuries of history in a clever interplay of music from a male voice choir, a brass band, the full Orchestra and Chorus of WNO and two international soloists. The eclectic musical background of Wallen herself will bring a fresh dimension to the process, which begins in the mining communities of the Valleys themselves, then transfers to the main stages of Wales Millennium Centre and the Birmingham Hippodrome.
This is the start of a new journey for WNO MAX, spanning the next three years, aimed at engaging with the marginalised and disadvantaged communities of South Wales and Cardiff Bay. This initiative is being supported by a £280,000 grant from The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the largest single grant ever to be awarded in Wales by the Foundation. Singing and narrative song traditions from these communities will inform a series of new works, in addition to developing established projects, such as Songlines. (Each season, different community groups work alongside established artists to create new cycles of songs, drawing on themes taken from classical repertoire being performed by the WNO ensemble). WNOs commitment to commissioning new opera from todays artists is seen as a crucial means of invigorating the artform. It can take many forms, but what is being delivered is, in essence, what WNO has always stood for: a quality live experience that celebrates the uniqueness of opera. Whether it takes place in a marquee, or on the stage of Sadlers Wells, the ambition is to continue to explore and learn about the world through this most extraordinary of artforms.
Penny Simpson is Head of Press for Welsh National Opera.
w: http://www.wno.org.uk