Wales Millennium Centre
Opera Favourites, Welsh National Opera
** While Welsh National Opera’s spring concert imaginatively called Opera Favourites did what it said on the tin, it was also partly a musical preview of some scheduled shows. There was, for example, a fair chunk of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, February 2025, and a rousing chorus and orchestral section from Britten’s Peter Grimes,…
A conservative and beautiful La Traviata, Welsh National Opera, Wales Millennium Centre
What else can be done with La Traviata that has not been done already? Giuseppe Verdi’s most famous work, the one many regard as the quintessential opera, has been through such a huge number of incarnations, revisitations and reimaginings – some more fortunate than others – that one would be truly hard pressed to think…
A earthy La Boheme that throws away the chocolate box wrapping
Annabel Arden’s 2012 production of La Boheme, now revived by Welsh National Opera for the second offering of its 2022 autumn season, gives its audience a largely straightforward telling of the doomed love affair of Mimi and Rodolfo. The only real “take” on the work is setting the opera in the early 20th century, perhaps…
An ungimmicky and elegant The Makropolus Affair from Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera was a groundbreaker in bringing Janáček’s operas to UK audiences, thanks to remarkable musical and artistic leadership in its younger days. Now, the company is sensibly building on the specialism of its music director Tomáš Hanus to introduce the works to new audience members. Thus, a short cycle of revivals ending with…
Don Giovanni, to hell and back
Don GiovanniWelsh National OperaWales Millennium Centre By Mike Smith The concept behind this take on the Mozart moral tale is Rodin’s The Gates of Hell, a monolithic bronze works, with human figures cast into the metal – as becomes the fate of the great seducer Don Giovanni. Figures from the vast masterpiece were also created…
An airbrushed show that has Madam Butterfly as a human commodity for whoever has the money to pay
Welsh National Opera at Wales Millennium Centre It must be deeply annoying for a director when the opera gets in the way of a concept. Drat – the libretto. You can fiddle with settings, play around with costumes, even tweak the translation but there are some things that you cannot escape. Well, you would have…
WNO announces more details of autumn 2021 season
Welsh National Opera has announced more details of its Autumn 2021 Season which includes a new production of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly. It follows the announcement that Wales Millennium Centre, its home base, is opening the main auditorium, the Donald Gordon Theatre, on September 9, in time for the WNO season. The Company has confirmed it…
A new Butterfly, a delayed migration-themed opera and three revivals for Welsh National Opera’s 21-22 season
Welsh National Opera brings back the 1980s Giles Havergal production of Rossini’s Barber of Seville to Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff in September, marking the company’s return to the stage. The company had performed a slapstick new co-production with Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2016 but has reverted to the near-40 year old show to…
Passion , Music Theatre Wales and NDCWales, Wales Millennium Centre
Passion was a very enigmatic production by NDC Wales in the way that the story was told to the audience. In this Michael McCarthy production, the stage was empty and dark, with the only design being a blue ladder leading up to the sky in the middle, and a long yellow curtain draped behind them,…
War and Peace, Prokofiev, Welsh National Opera, Wales Millennium Centre
Welsh National Opera chose to open its Autumn season with what many may deem an odd choice: Sergei Prokofiev’s adaptation of War and Peace. In many ways a late opera, if not a post-opera, this monumental work was written in the last of the golden years of opera, and subverts many of the rules of…