REVIEW: Welsh National Opera - Blaze of Glory!
Photo: Kirsten Mcternan
A landmark production in Welsh National Opera’s history…
Welsh stories are not often told in live theatre. Certainly not on large English stages like that of Bristol Hippodrome. Rarer still in opera.
Opera is an art-form not known for generating new work either, so you can imagine how unique an offering a new opera set in the Welsh Valleys might be for theatre-goers.
WNO’s Blaze of Glory! celebrates that most Cymric of sounds, the male voice choir. The night opens with a rousing number from Mrs Jones, Mr Williams, Mrs Evans, Miss Probert, Mrs Owen, Mr Lewis, Mr Williams, Mr Roberts and many others getting in on a song of salutations that covers just about every Welsh surname you can think of. The laughter was audible from this small crowd at Bristol Hippodrome as we meet our cast of miners and their wives on a Rhondda street for the first time.
Whilst much of the new material is fun, it’s in the traditional Welsh hymns that this story of a group of miners who set up a choir to enter the local Eisteddfod, comes into its own.
They sing Llef, perhaps one of the most famous Welsh choral songs of them all, as they enter the pit for the first time. It makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention, such is the haunting, glorious sound of this enormous cast descending into the depths of a dark, Welsh mine.
Calon Lân is the hymn that inspires this community to reluctantly create its choir. How could it not? The arrangement of this version of the song, as the character’s literally find their voices, is both humorous and joyful in equal swelling measure.
Sadly, that’s where the Welsh choral singing pretty much ends. There were plenty of hymns and arias in other languages, predominantly English, and even in the Eisteddfod itself, the choir sings in Italian.
This felt like an on odd creative choice and a disappointing one for anyone in the audience who was craving more of that ‘hwyl’ that only comes from a male voice choir singing in the melodic and beautiful Welsh language.
That aside, this is a remarkable achievement from Wales’s national opera company, who performed the first incarnation of this piece as a short community-led performance in Rhondda Rips It Up.
To see it now as a fully realised, fully staged production with outstanding performances from the company’s leading pros alongside the WNO Chorus and community performers, is testimony to the wonderful work this company is doing to bring opera to new communities. Rebecca Evans was particularly outstanding as Miss Nerys Price and special mention must go the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, who were just impeccable and awesome.
Personally, I would have liked more Welsh language songs from the stunning back catalogue of Welsh hymns at their disposal, and less yodelling and Broadway swing, which felt clumsy and at odds with the cultural heart of the narrative at times. That said, this is a landmark production in Welsh National Opera’s history, one that they and Wales should be proud of.
Tickets for Welsh National Opera’s performances at Bristol Hippodrome are available here.