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MUSIC Theatre Wales (MTW) has become one of the first partnership companies of the Royal Opera House. The prestigious building in Covent Garden will now be the Cardiff-based company's London home. MTW, which specialises in new music theatre and contemporary small-scale opera, will work with the Royal Opera House in developing new work. "It's an incredible accreditation for the company," said MTW artistic director Michael McCarthy. "It's something we are very, very proud of. I could not stress more strongly that this is a terribly important opportunity for the company to profile the contemporary culture of Wales." On Sunday, MTW will stage Nigel Osborne's highly-acclaimed opera The Electrification of the Soviet Union at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff as part of the International Festival of Musical Theatre. It is based on an autobiographical novella and poem by Boris Pasternak. It tells the story of young poet Serezha Spectorsky who is involved with a governess and prostitute and struggles to make sense of love, war, revolution and his own artistic creativity. The opera, which features Welsh singers Jeremy Huw Williams, Gwion Thomas and Jennifer Rhys-Davies, will also be staged at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold on November 17 and at Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea on November 23rd. Despite being based in Cardiff, McCarthy says MTW has a higher profile outside Wales. "We have a fantastic profile in England and Europe but we feel we don't have that level of understanding and acknowledgement in Wales," he said. "I think it's because we only perform at venues in Wales one night a year because of restrictions on our capacity to deliver, therefore people don't understand we are a Welsh company. "But we hope to deliver more productions in the future." The Electrification of the Soviet Union will be staged at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff on Sunday at 7.30pm. |
| Western Mail arts pages web site: icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0900entertainment/0050artsnews/page.cfm?objectid=12307031&method=full&siteid=50082 |
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Thursday, October 24, 2002 |
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