The story
Background
Choral singing became increasingly popular in 19th-century Wales, principally owing to the rise of the eisteddfod as a symbol of its culture. The first Welsh National Opera Company was formed in 1890. A local newspaper commented that it was remarkable that "a race of people to whom vocal music is a ruling passion should not generations ago have established a permanent national opera". The company gave performances of operas by the Welsh composer Joseph Parry in Cardiff and on tour in Wales. The company, predominantly amateur with some professional guest singers from the London stage, gave numerous performances of Parry's Blodwen and Arienwen, composed in 1878 and 1890 respectively. An American tour was planned, but the company folded, and Parry's final opera, The Maid of Cefn Ydfa, was given at Cardiff by the Moody-Manners Opera Company in 1902.
A Cardiff Grand Opera Society ran from 1924 to 1934. It presented week-long annual seasons of popular operas including Faust, Carmen and Il trovatore, and like its predecessor was mainly an amateur body, with professional guest principals. Apart from the productions of these two enterprises, opera in Wales in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was generally presented by visiting companies from England.
In the 1930s Idloes Owen, a singing teacher and conductor, ran an amateur choir, the Lyrian Singers, based in Cardiff. In November 1941, together with John Morgan – a former Carl Rosa baritone – and Morgan's fiancée Helena Hughes Brown, Owen agreed to found the Lyrian Grand Opera Company, with Brown as secretary and Owen as conductor and general manager. They publicised their plan and held a general meeting of potential supporters in December 1943; at that meeting the name of the proposed organisation was changed to "Welsh National Opera Company". By January 1944 plans were far enough advanced for the company's first rehearsals to be held. Owen recruited a local businessman, W. H. (Bill) Smith (1894–1968), who agreed to serve as business manager. At first doubtful of the company's prospects, Smith became its dominant influence, leading fund-raiser, and chairman for twenty years from 1948.
Early years
The new company made its debut at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Cardiff on 15 April 1946 with a double bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci. The orchestra was professional, mostly drawn from members of the BBC Welsh Orchestra; all the singers were amateurs, except for Tudor Davies, a tenor well known at Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells, who sang Canio in Pagliacci. During the week-long season the new company also staged Faust, with Davies in the title role. Although nearing the end of his career he was a considerable box-office draw, and the company played to full houses. Nevertheless, the expense of a professional orchestra and the hire of costumes and scenery outweighed the box-office receipts, and the season made a small loss. Finance remained a recurring problem over the succeeding decades.
Although Owen was the conductor for the performances of Cavalliera rusticana, and remained as musical director of the company until 1952, his health was fragile and he conducted none of the company's other productions. His colleague, the chorus master, Ivor John, was in charge of the first season's Pagliacci and Faust.
In 1948 the organisation was registered as a limited company, and the Cardiff season was extended from one week to two. The following year the company gave its first performances in Swansea. The chorus featured 120 performers by this time.
The company's first few seasons attracted little attention from the British musical establishment, but by the early 1950s London papers began to take notice. Picture Post hailed the WNO's chorus as the finest in Britain. The Times also praised the chorus: "It has body, lightness, rhythmic precision, and, most welcome of all, unflagging and spontaneous freshness." By this time the company had expanded its repertoire to take in Carmen, La traviata, Madame Butterfly, The Tales of Hoffmann, The Bartered Bride and Die Fledermaus. The Times commented that Smith, Owen and their colleagues were "making history for Wales. The shackles of puritanism, which had kept this country from an art-form perfectly suited to its national talents and predilections (for histrionics and dressing-up are as natural to the Welsh as singing) had been broken for ever".
1980s
During the 1980s WNO continued to expand in scope. Handel (Rodelinda, 1981) and Martinů (The Greek Passion, 1981) were added to the company's repertoire, and in 1983 Das Rheingold was staged in the WNO's first Ring cycle, followed by the other three operas of the cycle over the next two years. Das Rheingold, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung were conducted by the company's musical director, Richard Armstrong; Die Walküre (1984) was conducted by Goodall; it was seen as a coup for the company to secure his services – he was described by The Guardian as the greatest living Wagnerian conductor – but the casting of the whole cycle was criticised for some serious weaknesses among the principal singers, and reviewers were generally unimpressed by Göran Järvefelt's production.
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The chief executive, Brian McMaster, did not appoint a replacement to Geliot as principal director during the 1980s, preferring to engage guest producers. Boyd mentions Andrei Serban's Eugene Onegin (1980) among the successes and Lucian Pintilie's Carmen (1983) and Ruth Berghaus's Don Giovanni (1984) as productions that received more mixed responses. Sir Charles Mackerras, the conductor for Don Giovanni, was open in his contempt for Berghaus's production. Harry Kupfer's Fidelio (1981) was condemned by The Daily Telegraph as "a piece of Marxist polemic" making "political sport" of Beethoven's work. McMaster was thought by some too inclined to favour radical eastern European directors: Jonathan Miller, a leading English director, commented that he did not intend to take Bulgarian nationality, although it was "a must before Brian pays any attention".
Armstrong stepped down in 1986 after thirteen years as musical director; he was succeeded by Mackerras, whose association with the company dated back more than thirty years. Among the features of his six-year tenure was an increasing use of surtitles for performances not given in English. In the company's early days, all operas had been sung in English, but as more international stars began to appear as guest principals the language policy had to be reconsidered: few of the leading names in world opera were interested in relearning their roles in English. WNO steered a middle course between the practices of the two main London companies; after the 1960s The Royal Opera had generally given operas in the original language, and English National Opera was committed to opera in English. WNO's practice varied, after its early years. Examples from the 1980s include Wagner's Tristan und Isolde sung in German, and the Ring in English; and Verdi's The Force of Destiny given in English and Otello in Italian. Mackerras was a strong advocate of performance in the original language, with surtitles: "I can't imagine a greater advance for opera. … What a gift! It's like Siegfried understanding the woodbird."
1990s
McMaster resigned in 1991, having led the company to international status, with performances at La Scala, Milan; the Metropolitan Opera, New York; and in Tokyo. One of the last legacies of his tenure was the 1992 production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, directed by Peter Stein and conducted by Pierre Boulez. The New York Times called WNO "one of the finest operatic ensembles in Europe" and noted that the first night of the Debussy work, in Cardiff, "attracted 80 critics from all over the United Kingdom and the Continent... the most prestigious, intensely awaited event of the British operatic season." The production was given at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, a few weeks afterwards.
McMaster was followed as chief executive by Matthew Epstein, whose three years in charge (1991–94) were described in a 2006 study by Paul Atkinson as "a less happy and less successful period". Epstein was replaced by Anthony Freud, under whom, according to Atkinson, productions became "consistently strong, musically well prepared, intelligently staged and well cast." Mackerras was succeeded in 1992 by Carlo Rizzi, who was music director at the time of WNO's golden jubilee in 1996. When the occasion was marked with a new production of the "Cav and Pag" double bill that had launched the company in 1946, the BBC commented that WNO was "one of the most respected opera companies in the world". In The Observer, Michael Ratcliffe called the company "the most popular, populist and consistently successful arts organisation ever to come out of Wales... with the loyalty and affection of audiences in Cardiff and across England … 'The people's opera' is not a myth. It happened here." The jubilee celebrations were overshadowed by the collapse of a plan for a purpose-built home for the company, the Cardiff Bay Opera House.
During the 1990s WNO made its Proms debut, with a complete performance of Mozart's Idomeneo, conducted by Mackerras in 1991. The company played three short seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in the mid-1990s, featuring Tristan und Isolde and La favorita in 1993, The Yeomen of the Guard in 1995, and The Rake's Progress and the jubilee double bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci in 1996. In 1996 WNO commissioned Sir Peter Maxwell Davies to write an opera for the occasion of the company's 50th anniversary. The resulting opera was The Doctor of Myddfai, whose libretto written by David Pountney and included Welsh-language songs, based on a 12th-century folk tale. It premiered on 10 July 1996 at the North Wales Theatre in Llandudno with following performances in 1996. It was designed by Sue Huntley and Donna Muir.
From Wikipedia’s article on Welsh National Opera, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5