| 2025 Tour and Look-back |
At Mid Wales Opera |
| Trouble in Tahiti and Productions Retrospective , Performing Across Wales , November 29, 2025 |
Touring theatre and music is not as it was. Mid Wales Opera toured from 7th November to 5th December. “Trouble in Tahiti” was seen in Newtown, Weston Rhyn, Abergavenny, Builth, Llanelli, Cardigan, Aberystwyth, Bangor, Ludlow, Presteigne, Criccieth and Aberdovey. A beneficiary of the “Noson Allan” scheme the production was supported by the Colwinston Trust, Laidlaw Opera and the Millichope Foundation. “Trouble in Tahiti" -music and libretto by Leonard Bernstein- is a one act opera set in the 1950s. Sam and Dinah face up to the inner tensions that run through marriage. He works and goes to the gym. She goes to a therapist and the movies. She knits while he reads the newspaper. The chamber arrangement for seven instrumentalists is that of Bernard Yannotta. Jonathan Lyness on piano led the musicians who shared the stage with the cast of singers. The exhilarating opera performance had a second half made of twelve songs, the entirety called in complementary style “The American Dream.” Sondheim's “The Little Things You Do Together” from “Company” and ended with Yip Harburg's “If I Only Had a Brain.” Between the programme included more Bernstein, from “Candide”, Cole Porter, Samuel Barber, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Loesser and Aaron Copeland. Opera and song cycle were sung with wit and elan by John Ieuan Jones, Sam Marston, Kirsty McClean, Samuel Pantcheff and Samantha Price. Richard Studer directed. Bridget Wallbank was production manager and lighting designer. * * * * Powys makes up twenty-three percent of Wales; its residents account for four percent of the population. There was once, for those with memories, a Theatr Powys which toured widely. Mid-Wales Opera also toured regularly and widely. Its productions were habitually praised by opera reviewers in the London media. In September 2023 the investment review carried out by the Arts Council of Wales ended many years of public investment. The tour in 2024 was made possible by support via the United Kingdom government. Productions of Mid Wales Opera are reviewed below: 30 November 2025: Trouble in Tahiti * * * * 26 November 2024 “Pagliacci” “Pagliacci” (Clowns) is the short, late 19th century opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo that Mid Wales Opera have chosen as their “Small Stages” offering this Autumn, performing at Wyeside in Builth Wells on 15th November. It is a perfect choice of work for this beleaguered but resourceful small opera company. Time and again they have shown themselves to be endlessly innovative and inventive in their choice of works to perform and in their ability to produce high quality work with excellent production values on an astonishing shoestring and this production is no exception. “Just ten performers, five singers and five musicians (onstage with the performers). Jonathen Lyness, who is musical director of the company, is one of the five musicians (playing with the Ensemble as well as conducting from the piano). As orchestrator he has the truly remarkable ability to reduce the most complex and majestic opera scores, making sense of the music yet keeping the intrinsic quality of the original when re-scoring for just a handful of musicians, as in this case.” * * * * 08 April 2024, 28 March 2024: “Macbeth” “A company of thirty-six took the curtain call. The singers for Mid Wales Opera were joined by Jonathan Lyness, conductor in the pit of thirteen musicians from Ensemble Cymru. The live music did powerful justice to Verdi's score with its high moments of drama and poignancy. “Macbeth” came with the company's usual quality programme of eighty pages. The programme included full credits to the artists, a synopsis, a patron list, a note of gratitude to benefactor organisations. Jonathan Lyness contributed three pages on the background and development of the opera. Verdi halved the length of Shakespeare's text himself and sent his work to librettist Francesco Maria Piave.” * * * * 11 November 2023: “Beatrice and Benedict” “Richard Studer both directs and designs MWO shows. He has a particular talent for conveying the essence of a scene with the very minimum of stage dressing. In this case, a number of long, ivory fabric standards hang as a sort of backdrop with pale splashes of green-blue and red ochre, colours reflected in the costumes, which are a curious fusion of early 60’s chic with Regency and Elizabethan features, sumptuous ivory cloth outfits with flashes of gold in epaulettes (one shoulder) and slashed padding of ivory and red ochre on the other, russet stripes or slashes echoed in the sopranos’ frocks. “On everybody’s lips during the interval was the devastating news that MWO have lost ALL their Arts Council of Wales revenue funding. I heard expressions of disbelief, shock and even anger for, not only has this company lost 100% of its ACW revenue stream, but also Wyeside, the warm and welcoming venue where they performed that night, has lost a massive chunk of its funding from the same source. It is a theatre, cinema and gallery, serving Mid Powys for forty-five years and offering live performance by the likes of MWO, Sinfonia Cymru, Cerys Hafana and many others plus cinema and live streaming across two screens. “If that were not enough, Impelo (formerly Powys Dance) also with a forty year long history of serving communities with classes and performances from infancy to old age across the entirety of the county, plus hosting classes, workshops and performances at their beautiful dance centre in Llandrindod Wells (eight miles North of Builth) has also lost all of its ACW funding. In other words, Mid-Wales has been culturally gutted.” * * * * 10 November 2023: Reaction to Arts Council of Wales “The Loss of MWO Would Leave an Opera-shaped Hole in My Life” * * * * 23 March 2023 “Hansel and Gretel” “The production pulls off something of a coup in augmenting a touring cast of eight with no less than twenty-one singers. The finale is turned to a great burst of choral song. Admittedly the new stage arrivals are youngsters but they can sing. The company has reached out to every venue on the tour and recruited, trained and rehearsed a chorus drawn from the locality. Coaches and helpers for Aberystwyth are Rachel Blair, Hannah-Rae Seaton, Laura Oliver and Annalisa Biagini. Richard Studer is his own designer. Village and dark wood are cast either side of the cusp of the prosperous 'sixties. Philip Smith's Father ascends to the pithead and a Lowry-esque land. Repossession men in colourless arrivals take away the television on its spindly legs. Charlotte Badham's Hansel, not minding the loss of a screen, sets to glueing a balsa wood aircraft model. Alys Mererid Roberts' Gretel devises her own dance-game. Both young singers display a nimbleness of footwork.” * * * * 17 March 2022: “La Bohème” “Richard Studer remarkably performs three roles in the production. The translation is his. He has designed a Paris of two converging walls. His model is drawn more from the brickwork of industrial Flanders than the grands boulevards of Caillebotte or Pisarro. There is a fine detail to the direction. In the outdoors the waiter rushes to put flowers on the cafe tables. His work done he can be seen taking a cigarette break. The bohemians drink vin de table. Mari Wyn Williams' Musetta and Wyn Pencarreg's Alcindoro give themselves champagne. “The sky above in this mid-winter is a stygian black. Elanor Higgins' lighting is a marvel of subtlety in picking out features and half-tones of the singers. Three company members are familiar faces to an Aberystwyth audience from November's "Il Tabarro", which won Wales Arts Review's Best of 2021 award. Robyn Lyn Evans sings Rodolfo, Emyr Wyn Jones Colline and Philip Smith Marcello. The cast is rounded out with Dan D’Souza's Schaunard and a sparky trio of street chrorus in Hazel Neighbour, Meinir Wyn Roberts, Elen Lloyd Roberts.” * * * * 4 November 2021 “Il Tabarro” & Chansons “Richard Studer on stage thanks us for simply being there. It is mutual with applause and cheers at the end of an eclectic evening of music. The auditorium of Theatr y Gwerin is filled from top to bottom, left to right. But it is in the way of the new normal. Nonetheless, spaced and clustered though we be it still means around a hundred in a common space. A hundred is an audience and there to see, to hear and feel. However demanding the preparations, the rehearsing and the touring may have been the singers are manifestly projecting a joy to be back doing what they do. And it is a joy reciprocated. It is small wonder that all the forecasts, just a year, back about a future golden age for streaming have not come to pass. The first sound of Puccini's one-acter “Il Tabarro” is Elin Pritchard's soprano. And it is a wonder.” * * * * 12 March 2020 “Marriage of Figaro”” “Figaro Fizzes...The plot is a stream of schemes and ploys, concealments under curtains and in closets, disguises and discoveries. But it is also a three hour flow of lyric joy.” * * * * 05 March 2019: “Tosca” “Small companies are not supposed to bring sizeable choruses with them. Nonetheless, seventeen singers appear on stage for the “Te Deum.”...The number of singers gives the climax a scale and a volume that were Puccini's intention...it is a result of Mid Wales Opera's deep engagement in the community, drawn from local singers and choirs, some from Aberystwyth itself. In the pit, with Jonathan Lyness conducting, are thirteen musicians of Ensemble Cymru.” * * * * 25 November 2018: “L’Heure Espagnole” “If the ingredients for the successful production of small-scale opera in rural areas are accessibility and adaptability, then Mid Wales Opera has scored an indisputable bullseye in this highly approachable and hilarious new staging of L’Heure espagnole. In choosing Ravel’s clock-shop comedy for its second SmallStages tour in churches, small theatres and village halls across Wales, MWO has come up with a corker of a production. It will delight those encountering opera for the first time and help dismantle the notion that the art form is inaccessible and beyond reach.” * * * * 27th April 2018: “The Bear” and Company History “The company's origins were in North Powys back in 1988, the result of workshops at an opera summer school organised by aficionados, Barbara Mcguire, and farmer-opera singer, Alun Jones, who famously towed a trailer load of scenery with his tractor to Meifod village hall (about eight miles north-west of Welshpool) where they were to give their first concert performances. He later opened that concert, singing Figaro. “The fledgling company became Mid Wales Opera in 1990, by which time their base had become Theatr Hafren in nearby Newtown and they had managed to achieve Arts Council funding. Over the ensuing twenty years MWO developed their reputation for touring scaled down versions of opera repertoire to small and mid scale venues throughout Wales and further afield, maintaining their links to the Birmingham Conservatoire Opera School (via MWO co-founder, Keith Darlington) and to the Welsh National Opera, with periodic input from WNO orchestra musicians and guest soloist singers.” * * * * 06 April 2018: “Eugene Onegin” “...Director Richard Studer's costume design for the production is an Ingres gallery come to life. The men wear high stiff collars and flamboyant silk neckerchiefs. The women's dresses are high-waisted, the hair curled high in ringlets. For the party scenes they flit coquettishly across the stage in pure white dresses...Dan Saggars' lighting is outstanding, whether in a palace interior or capturing the northern light of a Russian garden...” * * * * 08 March 2017: “The Magic Flute” “Over its twenty-eight years Mid Wales Opera has been a regular reliable for flair and wit. “The Magic Flute” plays to the company's strengths. It is an exuberant delight. After long service Nicholas Cleobury is now to be sighted far away. Brisbane has much to gain. In Newtown the company has a new artistic team in conductor Jonathan Lyness and director Richard Studer...The Magic Flute” has a large company for this tour. Fifteen singers are on stage and ten musicians in the pit. The pleasures of the production are many. It is the best of starts for the new artistic team.” * * * * 07 September 2014: “Carmen” * * * * 11 February 2014: “Acis and Galatea” “Nicky Shaw’s set is a magic box , revealing ever new tricks and perspectives throughout the hour and a half of Handel’s near unbroken melodic grace. The principals, led by Jane Harrington’s Galatea and Oliver Mercer’s Acis, sing before a variety of verdant scenes. The shepherds hardly suggest they have ever done a day’s work in the fields. In their creamy waistcoats and knee-length britches they look as if they are in preparation for a Watteau-esque fếte galante...The word “happy” is sung three dozen times in jubilation. The singers, arm in arm, make a charming little jump in accompaniment. Happy is as happy does. The audience response is rapturous.” * * * * 24 October 2013:“Albert Herring” “Adam Wiltshire’s design captures the haunting eastern shoreline, the polar opposite to the Irish Sea coast. Marram grass on stage blends into a long marshy seafront overhung with North Sea clouds. Neat box hedge cones wittily cover piles of merchandise for Mrs Herring’s shop. A Union Jack leans over on a bent metal pole above a skewed Second World War pillbox. The human mind is built to read symbolism everywhere, even where not intended. A tabloid headline announces that it is the spring of 1979 and Catrin Aur’s Lady Billows has a touch of the new premier to her. Sure enough the wilting Union Jack soon disappears.” * * * * 08 September 2012: “Don Giovanni” “Mid Wales Opera always delivers a fresh interpretation. Flickering neon signs place the action in a gaudy commercial world. Designer dresses in a shop window are consumer dreams. The symbol of Christianity, the crucifix, becomes an on-off artefact in harsh neon. “Sin will find you” reads a chapel sign tellingly.” * * * * 21 October 2011: “Noyes Fludde” “...the ark rolls and pitches in the flood, the orchestra plays Britten’s storm-evoking music, and cast and audience sing alike. The onstage singers, in the main below the age of ten, by this point number two hundred and forty. The combined sound is colossal, the effect deeply emotive. “…Clare Williams brings many a small touch of wit to the production...The physical loading of the animals on the ark is accompanied by onscreen animation. The drawings are by children. Each creature has its distinct movement brought to life by animator Ben Davis. A chimpanzee grins, a cat trots along with a look of self-satisfaction, squirrels hop, a peacock opens his plume of feathers...the emotional heart is the survival of the natural world, koala bear, giraffe and dozens of others...“Noye’s Fludde” is more than just moving. All these voices, that have come together, sing “I may eternal brightness see and share thy joy at last.” Joy is shared indeed. In these grey days “Noye’s Fludde” is the best corrective; it brims over with hope” * * * * 22 September 2011, 12 September 2011: “Madame Butterfly” “...The era is that of Eisenhower. Pan Am is still a behemoth of global aviation, not the bankrupt of 1991...Madam Butterfly herself, in this time not long after the MacArthur occupation, sips out of a coke bottle. The television, brown and on spindly legs, shows its black and white American soap opera. A laundry basket is a gaudy red plastic...” * * * * 24 October 2009, 09 October 2009: “Marriage of Figaro” “...For the last time the slim figure of artistic director and conductor, Keith Darlington, with his snowy hair and invariably black shirt, is to be seen leading his chamber orchestra through a great score...wit, imagination and effervescence do not require vast budgets.” * * * * 10 November 2008; “The Bartered Bride” “Our characters names are made Welsh and English so Marenka becomes Myfanwy, Krusina becomes Lloyd-Morgan, Vasek becomes Victor and Jenik becomes Joseph and so on. “Rather than being an expression of nascent Czech nationalism under the yoke of imperial Austria-Hungarian domination, revelling in traditional folk tunes and dances, our tale is a Wales that celebrates eisteddfodau as an expression of identity in a sea of English cultural domination.” * * * * 25 August 1999: “Faust” “The standard of performance from chorus and singers was first class. Peter Auty as Faust particularly impressed as did Fiona Campbell as Siebel. Michael John Pearson was an aptly sardonic Mephistopheles and Elizabeth Woolett warmed up from a rather hesitant 'Un roi de Thule' to end with some wonderful singing in the fearsomely exposed final scene.” |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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