THEATRE

So back to the search engine. Add to music theatre in the subject box and it Music theatre obligingly comes up with Music Theatre A radical aesthetic Wales, the -based company whose work is regarded as the finest in Britain and rather than a form among the very finest anywhere. The company took its cue from the progressive Rian Evans ideals of the English Group (later the English Music Theatre Company) originally formed by at Aldeburgh. However, since what Music As the countdown to the opening of the Theatre Wales stages is primarily Wales Millennium Centre gathers pace, contemporary chamber opera, our original Rian Evans laments the lack of a suitable question immediately poses itself once space for the performance of music again. theatre, and suggests how this difficulty Perhaps the reality is that music theatre is might be overcome so that one of Wales’s a radical aesethetic rather than a form. It has most progressive theatre forms can be its roots in the experimental work of the enjoyed and celebrated by a wider 1960s which attempted to shed the audience. perceived excesses of opera. Its defining characteristic is a greater emphasis on the dramatic and the visual rather than on The advent of the Wales Millennium simply musical elements. That emphasis Centre will change our perspective on ought, in theory, only to be further many aspects of what Richard Eyre has enhanced in today’s climate with the new termed lyric theatre, so it is perhaps timely freedom offered by a greater naturalism on to look at the challenge this presents for the one hand and by up-to-the-minute music theatre in particular. But before considering this challenge, it might be as technology on the other. In recent years, the well to try to pin down the genre. Internet influence of the music theatre aesthetic on entries, however, only underline the difficulty mainstream opera has been noticeable, and of doing so with any precision. Typing ‘music Welsh National Opera’s often stated theatre’ into a search engine quickly produces commitment to a heightened dramatic Music Theatre International, the agency approach is a reflection of the fact that, even which represents Miss Saigon, Les Misérables in very traditional opera, it’s no longer and all of Stephen Sondheim. It’s certain that sufficient for singers simply to stand and the likes of these will come to the deliver their arias. We can assume that the Millennium Centre, but it’s not what the Millennium Centre, with its state-of-the-art purists mean by music theatre. It’s significant facilities, will permit WNO to embrace this that, from the outset, the Wales Millennium commitment with a renewed vigour, but for Centre has had to accommodate two sets of Music Theatre Wales the situation is requirements and figures: one set identified different. There’s no place for them in the by the letters WNO and the other by CM, new set-up, where the main auditorium is 102 Cameron Mackintosh. It’s also significant too big and the Centre’s studio too small. that the establishment of a biennial Performances can be programmed in the International Festival of Musical Theatre latter space, but it has no pit for musicians, intended to alternate with the Singer of the and will not suit the company’s present style World competition was an early of work. Given that Music Theatre Wales acknowledgement of the fact that the Wales enjoys associate status at the Royal Opera Millennium Centre would be as much a House, where they perform in Covent musical house as an opera house. Garden’s Linbury Studio, it is both baffling

and ironic that Wales’s ‘other’ flagship For McCarthy and MTW’s fellow company will not be at the WMC, but it is founder, Music Director Michael Rafferty, typical of Music Theatre Wales’s inventive it was always a very deliberate choice to approach that they are determined to turn eschew large-scale work and, as McCarthy things round and make the new landscape points out, not for nothing is the company work in the company’s favour. slogan ‘Intimate opera with a big kick’. But ‘It has always been a frustration that the while it was MTW’s brilliant production of one place we’ve had trouble getting the Harrison Birtwhistle’s Punch and Judy – right space to perform is Cardiff, our with all its raw power and immediacy itself home city,’ says Artistic Director Michael a milestone in the history of music McCarthy. ‘And, yes, in some ways, it’s even theatre – which established the company’s more ironic that we won’t fit anywhere into reputation beyond doubt, McCarthy now the Millennium scheme. But we realised wants that characteristically powerful style that our biggest successes of late had been and energy to be channelled into new in the Cheltenham and Buxton Festivals pieces, rather than contemporary classics. playing in Matcham-designed theatres, ‘Our work is not about the where our work fits and sits well. So it overwhelming, indulgent spectacle that is seemed logical to think about Cardiff’s opera, but about operating on a different New Theatre (also Matcham), and when we level of communication with the public, performed our last show, Param Vir’s Ion, requiring a different kind of participation we had a very positive experience there. So which is more like theatre. We invite the as WNO moves out of the New into the audience to be part of the experience from Centre, there’s a logic about our moving the inside, so that it becomes a process of into the New and inviting audiences to gradual engagement rather than telling look at that space afresh.’ them how to feel. One of our fundamentals

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Music Theatre Wales, Punch and Judy (photograph by Marilyn Kingwill, courtesy Music Theatre Wales)

is that we regard the whole score as our text, not just the words of the libretto, and this is where the relationships we develop with the composers are crucial.’ McCarthy and Rafferty’s optimism is further supported by the news that Music Theatre Wales will be getting funding from the Jerwood Charitable Foundation worth £60,000 over the next two years. This will help finance the two current projects, Nigel Osborne’s The Piano Tuner and Lynne Plowman’s House of the Gods, and will also Music Theatre Wales, Gwyneth and the allow the company to appoint two associate Green Knight (photograph by Mojo, courtesy composers, reinforcing Music Theatre Music Theatre Wales) Wales’s commitment to new work. ‘This kind of music needs perfomers of an about tackling new music, but he believes its incredibly high standard, and it’s gratifying power to communicate is intricately bound that we have so many gifted and versatile up with the way that the human voice is Welsh singers,’ says McCarthy. ‘There is used. ‘I’m less concerned with whether a sometimes an implication that music theatre is piece is thought of as music theatre or less demanding a genre than opera but, on the modern opera. Whatever the message or contrary, it is more demanding and requires whatever the music, a composer still needs to real virtuosity vocally as well as dramatic flair. write for a voice in a way that it can still sing For me, it has been particularly instructive to and I believe that as long as the music is be party to discussions currently underway in singable, that is to say manageable by singers, Norway, where a new national opera house is then the whole business of connecting with also moving towards completion. That an audience can produce powerful stuff. The building will also house a smaller space where emotion is there, the drama is there and it’s music theatre and chamber opera will be the voice which expresses it. In Wales the staged, and it’s interesting that the Norwegians power of the voice is something we’ve always are considering opening the smaller space first recognised, and it would be great to think in order to spotlight the more progressive form that composers were going to be given the and to give it a chance to establish itself before opportunity to create music that comes out staging the more traditional work in the main of such a strong tradition.’ auditorium.’ The Welsh composer John Metcalf is not Since it is the intensity of the experience content to accept the parameters of chamber that makes music theatre such a forceful opera or music theatre. He has a profound medium, it may be that, in terms of audience commitment to changing the whole audience response, a parallel should be with experience in order to make it less formalised contemporary cinema rather than and less hierarchical, and to push back the conventional opera. Judging from the boundaries between different forms. To that successes of the past couple of years, there end, his piece Kafka’s Chimp, first produced 104 certainly appears to be a growing appetite for by the Banff Arts Centre in Canada, new opera in . Welsh bass Gwynne dispenses with a conductor – Metcalf will not Howell sang in Thomas Adès’s opera The license the piece unless this condition is met Tempest, performed recently at Covent – and also requires musicians to be characters Garden to popular and critical acclaim, and in the performance alongside the singers and he would like to think that there will be more dancers. His aim is to achieve the greatest new works produced in the Millennium possible interaction between music, dance, Centre. Howell has never had any qualms lights and pictures.

Kafka’s Chimp is about the natural order of across the Atlantic and in Sweden, but yet to things and the polarisation of instinct and be staged in Metcalf’s native Wales) took place intellect in society today, and it was inspired in Pittsburgh Zoo. Kafka’s Chimp, simply by Franz Kafka’s short story ‘A Report to the because it happens not to require a pit, serves Academy’. A chimpanzee, captured on Africa’s to illustrate the fact that the absence of Gold Coast but now under the care of the ‘proper’ facilities in the Millennium Centre’s Academy’s director, discovers that in order to studio need not spell a negative or defeatist survive in the metropolis he must become a approach. It could instead be the breeding human. But as the chimp undergoes his ground for exciting experiments by composers metamorphosis, the director himself is also who go beyond the stereotypical patterns gradually transforming, and becomes a which have tended to characterise opera and chimp. This being Kafka, there is a point music theatre to date. when the audience looks at them both and The balance which music theatre seeks to can’t tell which is which. The philosophical, achieve is arguably very close to the original ethical and moral concerns of the piece have aims of the Florentines and Venetians who important implications, but so too do the established opera in the early seventeenth work’s practical aspects. One of its most century – Claudio Monteverdi certainly put successful productions (rapturously received musicians and singers together on stage in some of his pioneering work. The principle Music Theatre Wales, Punch and Judy (photograph by which remains is that the smaller scale and Marilyn Kingwill, courtesy Music Theatre Wales) the closer relationship of performers with the audience permits an immediacy which creates an altogether more stimulating, thought-provoking and affecting experience than grander, bigger opera. In the ’80s and the early part of the ’90s, Wales appeared to be establishing itself as a hotbed for the development of new work. Welsh companies, Brith Gof among them, were staging productions which often aspired – whether consciously or unconsciously – to the condition of music theatre. This spate of imaginative work unquestionably contributed to the sense of lively engagement with form and content which went beyond the boundaries of conventional theatre, but the funding changes of the ’90s deliberately edged out the companies who engaged in experiment. The hope was that the advent of the new Welsh Assembly would provide the impetus for change, and there is now an urgent need for the kind of funding that permits more cutting edge work to be honed 105 again in a new millennium, in the new Millennium Centre and in satellite spaces. The scope ought to be infinite. Pierre Boulez famously called music theatre ‘opera for the poor’, a form which neither requires nor aspires to the same extravagant trappings as grand opera.

Remembering that plans for the predecessor to the Wales Millennium Centre were scuppered in part thanks to Scene-changing and preconceptions about the elitist nature of opera, Boulez’ definition again offers food for scene-stealing thought. Through the centuries, Wales has, WNO’s new Eugene Onegin without question, been impoverished in the matter of theatre and drama, and the country Dewi Savage has never been a nation of dramatists. But Wales is unusual in having equally old musical and literary traditions and, since music and words are the very fundamentals on which The WNO Russian Series will bring music theatre depends, there is a logic which together seven by four great suggests that more radical approaches Russian composers over the next six combining both disciplines could produce years. The Russian Series marks a new music theatre emblematic of a new era. direction of artistic and musical Perhaps it is not too fanciful to suggest that in development for the Company, which the musico/dramatic Anterliwt of Twm o’r says that ‘in the Wales Millennium Nant there is quite a useful precedent to adopt Centre we will have the physical space and adapt in the twenty-first century. and technical capacity ideal for these In her native Australia, Judith Isherwood, large-scale operas’. The series, which will Chief Executive of the Wales Millennium include new productions of Mazeppa by Centre, developed collaborations which Tchaikovsky (Summer 2006) and aimed at a cross-fertilisation of ideas, so that Khovanshchina by Mussorgsky (Spring links were made with theatre and music 2007) was launched at the New Theatre organisations which did not necessarily in February with Tchaikovsky’s Eugene perform their shows on the main stages of the Onegin, Tugan Sokhiev’s first new Sydney Opera House, but strutted their stuff production as WNO’s Music Director. in new spaces across the city. Given the basis on which the Millennium Centre was The Welsh National Opera will present a conceived – as a working arts centre which veritable Russian operatic cycle over the next could make links with the whole of Wales and few years. Highly appropriate, you may say, not just with an elitist crachach; given the with the strikingly young new Russian wealth of experience that still exists in Wales musical director Tugan Sokhiev at the helm. even if it is presently unexploited; and given Such a repertoire has been comparatively the kind of radical international work with rare in the last two decades and will include which Wales has such strong connections – one utter rarity, Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa, Banff Arts Centre, MTW’s European partners along with a revival of the inspired Richard and Aberystwyth’s ‘Giving Voice’ Festival are Jones production of his theatrical just a few examples – the outlook could be masterpiece The Queen of Spades and David excellent. Is the time not ripe then for a new Pountney’s fine interpretation of 106 spirit of adventure in music theatre which Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. could spell meaningful and life-enhancing A more frequent visitor to Wales and experiences for the Welsh audience? WNO’s touring circuit has been Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, James Rian Evans is a writer and critic specialising in music Macdonald’s new production being the and the arts. She writes for Opera magazine among third in just over twenty years. Andrei others, and also contributes regularly to The Guardian’s Serban’s outstanding conception in the ’80s review pages. was replaced by a clear but problematic

version by Howard Davies in the ’90s. This Of course, this used to be the way, latest incarnation shares both the latter’s certainly at Covent Garden. In fact, there clarity and, for different reasons, its were celebrated Zeffirelli productions in problems. which changes of entire sets, not merely If Queen of Spades is the zenith of the scenes, were interminable. Eventually composer’s operatic oeuvre, it is equally no objections to such longeurs grew until they wonder that the accessibly ageless Onegin is a were outlawed. Zeffirellli, though, was more enduring popular success, encapsulating always a film-maker ‘in waiting’ and as it does both the breathtaking, lilting beauty subsequently a film-maker, and his settings of his ballet music and the darker-veined were stunning. Now, theatrically, he is as beauty of the often anguished symphonies. concise as Peter Brook. At the WNO, this Byronically Romantic in its anti- changing set hardly justified a resurrection Romanticism and its emotionally brittle and of such antiquated ritual, although the bitter conclusion, and one of the most intensely costumes, designed by Tobias Hoheisel, lyrical of all music dramas, Onegin was defined were superbly evocative. by Tchaikovsky himself as not an ‘opera’ but The depiction of Onegin as initially an ‘lyric scenes in three acts’, partly writing the icily Ibsenian character is good, although I libretto from Pushkin’s verse novel himself. am not convinced that Tatyana would have Eugene Onegin depicts Tatyana’s thwarted fallen for quite such a cold fish. Ibsen’s love for Onegin and its eventual reversal, and Brand after all, has, as the name implies, the production flows elegantly and poignantly, palpable fire. In his sister Martha’s recent like a river. Or it should. And that is the film of Pushkin’s Onegin, Ralph Fiennes, fundamental problem with Macdonald’s himself a consummate Brand, has production. Lengthened by an always extraordinary fire. extraneous second interval, longish scene- Vladimir Moroz, hampered perhaps by changes – two in the first act, one each in the the sepulchral mien imposed upon him by other two – make it positively cumbersome. the production, sang strongly but somehow drily and ultimately soullessly, leaving one Welsh National Opera, Eugene Onegin: Amanda Roocroft as Tatyana (photograph by Bill Cooper, eager for that sexy, prematurely cold world- courtesy Welsh National Opera) weary cynicism that Thomas Allen was able to convey so well in his day. Even when he is finally desperate for Tatyana – what a gift of a scenario – he remained unmoving. Of all the changes, an insistence on a 15- minute resetting for the final scene made life unnecessarily difficult for Moroz and Amanda Roocroft’s Tatyana. Roocroft, always a charismatic performer, convincingly portrayed a young girl’s fresh- faced and, in this work, rapid progression from lovelorn rejection to making her own unshakeable decisions, enhanced and 107 complemented by Hoheisel’s beautiful costumes. If Die Zauberfloete is above all Pamina’s show, then Onegin is certainly Tatyana’s, and Roocroft was affecting, particularly in the pivotal ‘Letter Scene’. However, a ringing, glowing brightness of voice somewhat eluded her.

Welsh National Opera, Eugene Onegin: Chorus (photograph by Bill Cooper, courtesy Welsh National Opera)

As Olga, the very different and less morose chagrin, Tatyana’s new and much older sister, Ekaterina Semenchuk – a very husband – Gremin only appears briefly in satisfying Russian import – was excellent. the last act, but Sherratt’s sonorous bass 108 Marius Brenciu, however, as her doomed shook the house and soothed it and, my fiancé Lensky, already damned by a ludicrous word, did it respond. wig and moustache, was unremarkable. WNO stalwart Suzanne Murphy and However, amidst the scene-changing, multi-talented regular Linda Ormiston there was nevertheless some effortless scene- acted nicely as, respectively, Madame stealing. By far the best singing of the night Larina and Filipyevna, and the redoubtable was by Brindley Sherratt as Prince Gremin. chorus sang and danced well to the Onegin’s cousin and friend – and, to his inventive choreography of Stuart Hopps. A stronger show would have better graced a During 2004/5 the resiliently independent season which sustains revivals of WNO’s Centre for Performance Research (CPR) is oldest extant production and one of its marking a double anniversary: 30 years of greatest, Hertz’s Madama Butterfly, in addition work (as both Cardiff Laboratory Theatre to Richard Jones’s quirkily brilliant and Company and CPR) and 10 years since it touching Hansel and Gretel. Still, the orchestra relocated to Aberystwyth. What started out played wonderfully and – this is the important from a desire to train company members in point – responsively to Tugan Sokhiev’s baton, theatre, dance and performance that and that bodes well for the future of Russian nobody else was bringing to the UK has and, hopefully, other opera in Wales. now evolved into the CPR today, led by Artistic Director Richard Gough and Dewi Savage is a writer, performer and occasional reviewer Executive Producer Judie Christie. for Opera Now, The Western Mail and Cambria.

Giving Voice, Taking Flight Working with the International Voice in Wales 1980 – 2004 Both photographs accompanying this article are of the ‘Giving Voice’ Festival 2004, (courtesy the Centre for Antony Pickthall Performance Research)

The work of CPR has influenced the performance landscape not just in Wales but Established in 1988, by Richard Gough and arguably across the world. Actors, directors, Judie Christie, the Centre for Performance writers, singers, dancers and academics have Research is a theatre organization based in attended workshops, conferences and Wales and working internationally. It performances in Cardiff, Aberystwyth and produces innovative performance work, throughout Wales – taking their experiences arranges workshops, conferences, lectures back to Africa, Asia, Australia, the USA and and master classes, collaborates and the far-flung reaches of Europe. They have exchanges with theatre companies of visited barns, caves, beaches, forests, fields, international significance, publishes and quarries, chapels and occasionally even distributes theatre books, and runs a multi- theatres in pursuit of outstanding cultural performance resource centre. performance practice from around the Following the success of CPR’s latest ‘Giving world. CPR has taken its audience and 109 Voice’ Festival in Aberystwyth and Cardiff participants on an exhilarating performance in April, New Welsh Review asked the journey: from Chinese Opera to Enrique organisation’s Marketing and Development Vargas’ Labyrinth project, from Jerzy Director, Antony Pickthall, to reflect on the Grotowski’s ‘Laboratorium’ to Meredith historical development and ongoing creative Monk’s Sound House. At the heart of this concerns and ambitions of CPR. work has been the desire to seek out training to inspire quality, invigorating work. A major part of this work has been the As the newly formed Centre for development of a deeper understanding of Performance Research, CPR facilitated the the role of the voice in performance. The first visit from a remarkable Polish theatre CPR’s ‘voice in performance’ projects date company, Gardzienice Theatre Association, back to the original formation of CPR – in 1989. Their use of dynamic physical and Cardiff Laboratory Theatre (Cardiff Lab), vocal skills in their memorable show, which was established as early as 1980 in Avvakum, and in the more in-depth context order to create intensive in-service training of a workshop, had a huge impact. opportunities, initially for the company Performers and directors who attended this members, later offering places to other workshop have subsequently been at the performers in Wales and the UK. As a forefront of a theatre practice that explores freelance voice associate with CPR since voice and movement in new and exciting 1981, Joan Mills has organised substantial ways. An off-shoot of Gardzienice, Teatr gatherings of influential voice practitioners. Piesn Kozla (Theatre of the Song of the Initially, these included voice workshops Goat) toured Wales as part of the Restless with: traditional singer Frankie Armstrong; Gravity Festival in October 2000 and jazz and improvisation singer Maggie Gardzienice have recently been working in Nichols; Zygmunt Molik of Grotowski’s Wales again – on a collaboration between world-famous theatre laboratory in Poland; their ‘Ancient Orchestra’ and Wales’s own and Enrique Pardo from Peru – who, Earthfall Dance Company. influenced by the Roy Hart Theatre, In 1990, the first ‘Giving Voice’ Festival specialised in the voice and the psyche. took place, bringing 18 different artists to The great Polish director Jerzy Cardiff to perform, teach and talk about Grotowski’s Wroclaw Laboratorium Theatre their work. It was an overwhelming success, Group were so impressed by Cardiff Lab’s and the response showed immediately that genuine interest and understanding of CPR had identified an important gap in the physically based voice investigations, that in provision of performance training and had 1982 they came to teach intensive voice tapped into a real and deep interest in voice workshops in Cardiff. This was the first time training both for professionals and for the they had visited Britain for 13 years, and public. The past twenty years have seen a real participants came from all over the UK. In upsurge of interest in voice-work of all kinds, the years that followed, voice work included perhaps because this most natural, personal the first visit and UK tour of a 60-strong means of expression and creativity has been Beijing Opera company, who led workshops so neglected. Joan Mills has been hugely and put on performances, followed later by inspired by the work of Kristin Linklater, the Shanghai Kunju Opera, who were also whose influential books include Freeing the on a UK-wide tour with performances, Natural Voice and Freeing Shakespeare’s Voice. workshops and lecture programmes. Kristin has been a consistent teacher and contributor since the first ‘Giving Voice’ Festival, supporting it as it developed into a fascinating mix of practical workshops and informed discussion for practitioners and 110 academics. Aberystwyth and Cardiff have hosted the likes of Noah Pikes, Cicely Berry and Tran Qu’ang Hai (who once demonstrated his virtuosity in overtone singing down the phone to CPR Executive Producer, Judie Christie). Virtually every significant voice practitioner of the past 30 years has been a contributor.

Between 30 March and 7 April this year Now CPR’s publishing division, Black the eighth CPR ‘Giving Voice’ Festival took Mountain Press, has published a practical place, with a gathering of teachers, workbook for singers interested in performers and participants from around traditional Georgian folk songs. 99 the world, at the University of Wales, Georgian Songs (£25.00) grew out of a Aberystwyth, and at the Royal Welsh typically close relationship between CPR College of Music and Drama in Cardiff. and an artist, Georgian ethnomusicologist Teachers included: Enrique Pardo and musician Edisher Garakanidze and his (originally from Chile and now based in ensemble Mtiebi. It took Joan Mills and France); Jean-René Toussaint and Anne- CPR six years to produce the work after Marie Blink from Rotterdam’s Stemwerk vowing to publish it when Edisher was Foundation; Mariana Sadowska – a former tragically killed in 1998. Hugely inspired by performer with the Gardzienice Theatre the response to his first UK workshops with Association; Judith Shahn from the USA, CPR in Cardiff, he made it his life’s work to Tomasz Rodowicz from Poland (one of the collect traditional Georgian folk songs. The founders of Gardzienice Theatre production of the book has been a close Association); and Åsa Simma from collaboration between CPR and Edisher’s Lapland. This year the festival offered a friends and family. It has been a sometimes typically eclectic mix of training, which on frustratingly slow process across phone lines this occasion explored the theme of in Georgia, Wales and Australia and ‘Thinking Voice, Feeling Voice’. through the final years of a repressive In Aberystwyth in 1996, Joan Mills Georgian government. As with so much of established a community choir in their work, CPR was inspired by an artist’s association with Aberystwyth Arts Centre. vision and has made it real. This led to CPR’s community participation programme, Local Voices, Worlds of Song – For further information about CPR see: initially a year-long programme of evening www.thecpr.org.uk classes, weekend workshops, choir +44 (0) 1970 622133 commissions and performances funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation. This helped CPR at Aberystwyth is a joint venture with the Heartsong Choir to develop and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth’s establish its identity and repertoire through Theatre, Film and Television Studies a series of workshops led by Joan Mills and Department, which has enabled it to expand visiting tutors from the UK and abroad. its programme of conferences, workshops, Since 2002, CPR has also organized three performances, summer schools, festivals and annual gatherings for Community Choirs publishing, and help the University establish in Wales and the Borders – bringing up to an MA course on Theatre and the World. 200 non-professional singers together to learn polyphonic songs from Georgia and Corsica, American Shape Note and Gospel, and ‘singing with confidence’ skills. Geraint Talfan Davies, Chair of In 2003, CPR was awarded funding from the Arts Council of Wales, responds 111 the PRS Foundation/Arts Council of Wales New Works fund to commission one of to David Adams’s article, ‘So Wales’ leading composers, Karl Jenkins. He What’s this National Theatre has composed a new six-part song cycle, Debate?’ (New Welsh Review 63), Travels With My Uncle: it will be premiered on 12 December 2004, and will be sung by up to in the Letters section of this 200 community singers from across Wales. issue (page 135).