Welsh musical First Night

More rain overnight, so the pavements and rains were flooded when I walked to St Catherine's to celebrate the Eucharist. There were a dozen of us today. As it was the 'All Saints of Wales' feast day, I had the idea beforehand of making a list of Welsh Saints whose names I could recall from memory from place names around the Principality, then read them out in place of a sermon and explained why. There was one local to us, St Elvan, to whom a church in Aberdare is dedicated. Stephen, who taught in the town's Church secondary comprehensive school, reminded me of this over coffee afterwards. Apart from this omission, I managed to remember twenty four names.

I then went to Chapter to collect this week's veggie bag and cooked some chicken for myself and a sugo to accompany this, and the veggie equivalent of meatballs. Later, I did the week's grocery shopping at the Co-op, and made a few edits on Sway. Then it was time for an early supper so that we could drive to the Millennium Centre for the first sell-out performance of 'Branwen:Dadeni', a Welsh language music theatre show.  Here's a peek at the rehearsals

The story is a creative adaptation of a tale from the Mabinogion about a royal family in decline, war weary, corrupt, looking to restore its fortunes through the ability of a charismatic 'People's Princess' to unite the kingdom to build a new society together. All that happens in the story is history repeating itself. It's a matter of plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - same old, same old yet again. 

The auditorium was packed with younger than average opera goers, predominantly Welsh speaking. An unusual experience! A band of six musicians played from an open gallery above the stage - keyboard bass, drums, to fiddles and harp. The music was too loud for me, but appropriate to the character of the show, even if on times the dialogue was repeated in song a dance routine 

The spoken dialogue was interspersed with song and dance routines delivered by six principal performers plus eight singers performing either in the gallery or on stage. Translated into English on two of the three surtitle screens (one at stage level in the corner), it was often funny but for my taste, overly crude adding nothing to the story, if anything a substitute for real emotional depth. 

Much of the dialogue was poetic philosophical, reflecting on the nature of power and status. I'd love to see a full operatic treatment of this libretto by a top composer like Carl Jenkins, as a completely sung version would bring out its full emotional power and colour. 

It was gone eleven when we reached home. I had to hunt the neighbourhood for a place to park the car, as our street was full. That's why I hate going out in car at night. Returning the usual hassle spoils the pleasure, and it won't be easy to get to sleep.