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The Pied Piper of Hamelin and The Crab That Played With The Sea
Millennium Centre, Cardiff
GIVEN the fine voice of the Welsh National Opera youth choruses, performing two lovely productions of the Pied Piper of Hamelin and The Crab That Played With The Sea, one can safely say that the future of Welsh National Opera is in safe hands.
Pied Piper composer Jonathan Willcocks and The Crab composer Paul Ayres have pulled together two simple operas that work wonderfully.
The two youth companies encompass the age range of 10-14 years old and 14-18 years old and both groups of singers came together in these delightful operas for audiences of all ages.
The Pied Piper is based on the poem by Robert Browning and the familiar tale of a town plagued by rats as told by the mayor.
The mayor clearly represented the casual way of those with power who order a mass killing, offering a huge payment to the Piper, but then refuse to honour the agreed price.
The Piper is portrayed as a puppet and is ably guided by members of the chorus as he plays his beguiling tunes for both rats and children.
This is a simple retelling of a familiar story, and the children’s singing is joyous.
Rudyard Kipling’s wonderful language is what resonates in his tale of how the world and all its animals were created in The Crab That Played With The Sea, with strong singing and spoken words.
The range of the young people’s voices all added to a performance that was easy to follow and captivating.
The animal puppets and costumes were beautiful, and were simply but effectively staged. The magician creating the world was imaginatively portrayed by a suitcase mouth and huge hands.
Considering the range of ages, the voices seamlessly blended together and director Angharad Lee and vocal director Sian Cameron deserve plaudits for this.
These two short operas deserve a wider audience and it would be good to see them performed again to inspire a new generation of opera lovers.
The WNO should be congratulated for working with such young performers to secure its own choral future, but the diversity on show did not reflect a modern Cymru and more outreach work is needed to include the wider Welsh society.
