Welsh National Youth Opera

Last updated

WNO Youth Opera (WNYO) (Welsh: Opera Ieuenctid WNO) is a training and performance programme for young singers aged between 8 and 25. It forms part of the youth wing of Welsh National Opera, with Youth Opera groups in South Wales (Cardiff), North Wales (Llandudno) and Birmingham. Recent full-scale WNO Youth Opera productions include Brundibár (2019), Kommilitonen! (2016), and Paul Bunyan (2013).

Contents

The groups meets regularly in throughout the academic year with and work with directors, vocal coaches and musicians to improve performance skills, as well as collaborating with composers and writers in the creation of new pieces.

Background

Formerly known as WNO Singing Club and starting with only seven participants, it has grown to include over a hundred members spanning over three regional hubs (South Wales, North Wales and Birmingham).

Each year WNO Youth Opera mounts a full-scale production which is performed in the Wales Millennium Centre. In April 2005 it premièred the thrilling new opera The Tailor's Daughter composed by Brian Irvine with a libretto by Greg Cullen and directed by John Doyle. In July 2006 it performed Leonard Bernstein's comic operetta Candide to much acclaim ), while in July 2009 the company performed Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

Upcoming productions in 2022 include Judith Weir's The Black Spider and Shostakovich's Moscow, Cheryomushki .

Notable alumni

Previous members currently working in opera and music theatre include Natalya Romaniw, Samantha Price and David Thaxton.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Opera Australia</span> Principal opera company in Australia

Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House accompanied by the Opera Australia Orchestra runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent at the Arts Centre Melbourne, where it is accompanied by Orchestra Victoria. In 2004, the company gave 226 performances in its subscription seasons in Sydney and Melbourne, attended by more than 294,000 people.

Sir Richard Armstrong is an English conductor. He was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar.

Welsh National Opera (WNO) is an opera company based in Cardiff, Wales; it gave its first performances in 1946. It began as a mainly amateur body and transformed into an all-professional ensemble by 1973. In its early days the company gave a single week's annual season in Cardiff, gradually extending its schedule to become an all-year-round operation, with its own salaried chorus and orchestra. It has been described by The New York Times as "one of the finest operatic ensembles in Europe".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bryn Terfel</span> Welsh bass-baritone singer

Sir Bryn Terfel Jones, is a Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer. Terfel was initially associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Figaro, Leporello and Don Giovanni, but has subsequently shifted his attention to heavier roles, especially those by Puccini and Wagner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aberdeen International Youth Festival</span>

Aberdeen International Youth Festival was a festival of performing arts and one of Scotland's major international cultural events, which ran from 1981 to 2017.

Sir Thomas Boaz Allen is an English operatic baritone. He is widely admired in the opera world for his voice, the versatility of his repertoire, and his acting—leading many to regard him as one of the best lyric baritones of the late 20th century. In October 2011, he was appointed Chancellor of Durham University, succeeding Bill Bryson.

Jonathan Dove is an English composer of opera, choral works, plays, films, and orchestral and chamber music. He has arranged a number of operas for English Touring Opera and the City of Birmingham Touring Opera, including in 1990 an 18-player two-evening adaptation of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen for CBTO. He was Artistic Director of the Spitalfields Festival from 2001 to 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama</span> Music school in Cardiff, Wales

The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama is a conservatoire located in Cardiff, Wales. It includes three theatres: the Richard Burton Theatre, the Bute Theatre, and the Caird Studio. It also includes one concert hall, the Dora Stoutzker Hall. Its alumni include Anthony Hopkins, Aneurin Barnard and Rob Brydon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Price</span> Welsh operatic soprano

Dame Margaret Berenice Price was a Welsh soprano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arwel Hughes</span> Welsh orchestral conductor and composer

Arwel Hughes OBE was a Welsh orchestral conductor and composer.

The Midsummer Marriage is an opera in three acts, with music and libretto by Michael Tippett. The work's first performance was at Covent Garden, on 27 January 1955, conducted by John Pritchard. The reception of the opera was controversial, over confusion as to the libretto and Tippett's use of symbols and psychological references. The opera has received at least 10 more productions, in England, Wales, Scotland, Germany, Sweden and the United States, including two more at the Royal Opera House.

Cape Town Opera (CTO) is a professional opera company in Cape Town, South Africa. CTO was founded in 1999 by the management and staff of the former South Africa Arts Council Opera and the Cape Performing Arts Board (CAPAB), itself a successor to the Cape Province Performing Arts Council and the previous Opera School at the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town, which had been founded in the early 1920s under the Italian tenor Giuseppe Paganelli.

The National Youth Orchestra of Wales is the national youth orchestra of Wales, based in Cardiff. Founded in 1945, it is the longest-standing national youth orchestra in the world.

Mervyn Burtch MBE was a Welsh composer, best known for his work with children's music projects.

Carlo Rizzi is an Italian conductor.

Tornrak is the third opera by Welsh composer John Metcalf. It has an English-language libretto by Michael Wilcox with Inuktitut sections translated by Blendina Makkik. Set between the worlds of the Canadian Arctic and Victorian Britain, it features Inuit throat singing and other extended vocal techniques that give the Arctic scenes a distinct character. The opera was composed between 1986 and 1990 when Metcalf was working in Canada. It was first staged in 1990 in a co-production by the Banff Centre, where Metcalf worked, and the Welsh National Opera who had commissioned the work.

Evan Idloes Owen was a Welsh singer, composer, and conductor. He was the principal founder of the Welsh National Opera.

<i>Quadrophenia</i> (musical)

Quadrophenia is a stage musical based on the sixth studio album by English rock band The Who, released on 19 October 1973, and a film of the same name, released in 1979. The album was the group's second full-length rock opera, and the story reveals social, musical and psychological events from an English teenager's perspective. The music and songs were composed by Pete Townshend and the story is set in London and Brighton in 1964 and '65.

Wagner Dream is an opera by Jonathan Harvey, premiered in 2007, to a libretto by Jean-Claude Carrière, which intertwines events on the last day of the life of Richard Wagner with elements from a fragmentary opera sketch by Wagner himself, Die Sieger.

Alis Huws is a Welsh harpist from Powys, the sixth and current Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales.

References

    1. http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jul-Dec08/maisy1107.htm