The WNO’s Freedom Season continues with their emotional and dramatic performance of The Consul. The performance perfectly framed everything that the Freedom Season is about and could have been used as the initial production as it would have set the tone for the other productions being delivered over the month. The Consul is not hard-hitting or powerful instead it combines heartfelt emotion and a dramatic element delivered through the content and music. Written in 1949 and set in an…
The Welsh National Opera got its summer season ‘FREEDOM’ off to an explosive start at Wales Millennium Centre with its production of Dead Man Walking. With music by Jake Heggie, the opera follows the work of nun: Sister Helen Prejean as she works with death row prisoner Joseph De Rocher who has been convicted of the rape and murder of a teenage couple. Set in Louisiana in 1980’s, there are many themes raised in the opera, through emotional and sometimes…
THE WELSH NATIONAL OPERA ORCHESTRA ARE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD! WNO celebrates the magical movie The Wizard of Oz with a stunning live accompaniment at St David’s Hall on Sunday 10 September. Forget scratchy soundtracks – this is the chance to hear Over the Rainbow, Follow the Yellow Brick Road and all your favourites in vivid orchestral technicolour complete with original vocals. Released in 1939 by MGM as an enchanting adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s novel, The Wizard of…
Welsh National Opera is pleased to announce the appointment of two new members to its Board. Martyn Ryan joins the WNO Board, taking on the role of Chairman of Audit and Risk. Born in Cardiff, he gained a degree in business economics and sociology from the University of Southampton, and has completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. Martyn was formerly a Partner and the Chief Operating Officer at Genesis Investment Management, and remains a Trustee of the…
Audiences across Wales and the world will get a chance to see Welsh National Opera’s new opera In Parenthesis this year thanks to a series of cinema screenings and online broadcast of the opera. In Parenthesis, which is commissioned by the Nicholas John Trust with 14-18 NOW, the UK’s arts programme for the First World War Centenary, is the operatic adaptation of poet, writer and artist David Jones’s epic poem. Composed by Iain Bell, it remembers David Jones’s personal experience…