United Kingdom Various – A Chorus Christmas: Welsh National Opera Chorus, Singers from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama / Freddie Brown (conductor, organ) & Tim Rhys-Evans (conductor). Tabernacle Chapel, The Hayes, Cardiff, 7.12.2024. (LJ)
O Come All Ye Faithful
Leoncavallo – (from I Pagliacci) ‘Son qua! Ritornano’ & Bell Chorus
Holst – Ave Maria
Franz Biebl – Ave Maria
Mozart – (from Idomeneo) ‘Carriamo, Fuggiamo’; ‘Placido è il mar’
Handel – (from Messiah) ‘And the Glory of the Lord’; ‘For Unto Us a Child is Born’; ‘There were shepherds abiding’; ‘Glory to God’; ‘Hallelujah’; ‘Worthy is the Lamb – Amen’
Vaughan Williams – Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Rutter – Shepherd’s Pipe Carol
Trad. – Hwiangerdd Mair (arr. Tim Rhys-Evans)
Peter Cornelius – The Three Kings
Sondheim – (from Sunday in the Park with George) ‘Sunday’
Mykola Leontovych – Christmas Bells (arr. Tim Rhys-Evans)
Mascagni – (from Cavalleria rusticana) Easter Hymn
Over recent years and months there have been several political rallies over a range of issues. In our industry – the arts – one of the biggest challenges we face is the threat of closure due to lack of funding. On the morning of Friday’s concert, I read an article from The Guardian decrying the closure of English Literature departments up and down the country – an inevitability that has been on the cards for several years. When I entered the Hayes Tabernacle, Cardiff, for a Christmassy choral evening featuring well-known pieces like Leontovych’s Carol of the Bells (1919) based on the Ukrainian New Year’s song ‘Shchedryk’, Holst’s Ave Maria (1900), and Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on Christmas Carols (1912), I was ready to leave behind thoughts of funding cuts and poorly resourced arts councils. Boy, was I wrong.
The concert was more a choral call to arms than it was a musical narration of the nativity. And the Welsh National Opera Chorus, eagerly flanked by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama Singers, were in very fine form. But before I extrapolate the political urgency of last night’s concert, I shall first explain its format. The WNO Chorus performed alongside fourth year undergraduate and postgraduate singers from the RWCMD for an evening of music from a multitude of genres: opera, musical theatre, sacred repertoire, the Welsh choral tradition, and music for Christmas.
This concert was the first public performance where these two beacons of Welsh musical life and heritage (indeed, the WNO and RWCMD celebrate 80 and 75 years, respectively) performed together. The singers were conducted by the WNO Chorus Master, Freddie Brown (who also played the organ when he was not conducting), and the RWCMD’s Director of Music, Tim Rhys-Evans (who also arranged the Welsh lullaby and Christmas Bells which fused Carol of the Bells with God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen), making this very much a joint venture. The collaboration seemed mutually beneficial: what one group of choristers gained in youthful enthusiasm and dedication, the other group gained in professionalism, discipline, and technique. The WNO also benefited from the students’ willingness to support their cause as every performer wore ‘SAVE OUR WNO’/‘ACHUB OCC’ t-shirts and contributed heartfelt performances that were #WNOProud. Less said about the interruptions to the performances due to the government’s Storm Darragh red alert alarms, the better. Suffice it to say both conductors and the performers were professional and patient.
Towards the end of the evening, there was a break in the singing where a banner, placards, and flyers, were all held up by the singers each drawing attention to the damaging effects budget cuts are having on the arts, specifically on the WNO. Long-time baritone, Philip Lloyd-Evans, delivered an impassioned speech highlighting that, once a chorus with 42 full-time singers, the WNO chorus will be stripped back to a mere 20 full-time choristers in 2025. That is a loss of more than one full-time singer every year. As Lloyd-Evans so clearly put it, this concert and their cause is ‘for opera and for the arts’.
But the WNO did not merely state why they needed funding to keep singing, they showed us. Through their performance of ‘For Unto Us a Child is Born’ from Handel’s Messiah they showcased each section of the chorus magnificently. From this piece alone we could hear the chorus’s variety, strength, expression, subtlety – qualities which make the WNO world class. The quote to which this title belongs continues ‘unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder’ (Isaiah 9:6 KJV). As the political urgency of the concert was forefront in everyone’s minds (aided by the presence of every chorister, musician, and both conductors in ‘SAVE OUR WNO’ t-shirts), this line took on a new resonance. If institutions like the WNO are struggling to stay afloat due to a lack of funding, on whose shoulder does the government sit?
As the audience were invited to stand with the WNO chorus and RWCMD singers to sing O Come All Ye Faithful and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, the power of music to unite a community behind a cause or message was palpable. Highlights from the concert include Angharad Morgan’s (soprano) solo for Handel’s ‘There were shepherds abiding in the field’ and ‘Glory to God’. Her expressivity and tone were reminiscent of Kiri Te Kanawa’s in the recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Sir Georg Solti in 1985. This is no coincidence given that Morgan was mentored by Te Kanawa when training at the Wales International Academy of Voice. The WNO and RWCMD gave moving performances of Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria (1964) and the traditional Welsh hymn Hwiangerdd Mair (Mary’s Lullaby, arranged by Rhys-Evans). In the second verse, we heard the moving line ‘Cwsg cyn daw’r groes i’th ran’ (‘Sleep before the cross comes to you’) sung with depth and softness associated with the ‘côr meibion’, or male voice choir. The lullaby invokes us to take heed and rest before the inevitable suffering that is yet to come. Perhaps the double meaning inherent in this was not lost on the WNO chorus who are facing the threat of closure.
But this was by no means a self-pitying concert. Proof of the rousing gusto the WNO chorus can still muster in the face of its suffering could be heard in their encore. As they sung the Easter Hymn from Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana (1889), the line ‘We rejoice that our Saviour is living!’ was again given dual meaning as the audience could, at least once more, rejoice that the WNO is still singing. Rhys-Evans pointed out that this piece constituted the company’s debut performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre across the street behind the Tabernacle on 15 April 1946; a sign of the company’s longstanding connection to the city and subsequent expansion with performances in Swansea beginning in 1949. As the number of performances grew, so too did the size of the company, its repertoire, and, of course, its reputation. Their productions of La traviata (1988), Pelléas and Mélisande (1992), and Die Meistersinger (2010) have set the WNO apart as a company par excellence.
I would decry anyone who attended the concert to say that the WNO is anything other than a necessity to Welsh heritage and identity, and a gift to music lovers around the world. Yet, in April 2023, the WNO saw its core funding from Arts Council England cut by 35%. With this in mind, I would like to close this review with a request that you stand behind these courageous musicians and, like the WNO, don’t just state but show your support by signing the petition with the Musicians’ Union to #SaveTheWNO.
Lucy Jeffery