The chancellor had other things on her mind this past week, but she cannot fail to have heard the rallying cry – barely heeded in the budget – of her one-time colleague Andy Haldane, former chief economist at the Bank of England, now chief executive of the Royal Society for the Arts. He called for bold investment in the arts, and celebrated the benefit to social communities, and the “sense of joy and a sense of pride, a sense of belonging” that can result. Among others – in Glasgow, Hull, Salford – he cited Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, home to Welsh National Opera since the venue opened in 2004. WNO’s record of achievement in those two decades has been exceptional, from internationally important productions of Janáček, Britten, Richard Strauss and others, to community projects and an award-winning youth opera company.
Last week, members of WNO Chorus were out in the rain, outside New Theatre, Oxford, distributing “Save the WNO” leaflets. After a 35% funding cut from Arts Council England and an 11.8% reduction from Arts Council Wales, chorus, orchestra and others face heavy cuts to jobs and pay, and a threat of compulsory redundancies. In the crumbling ruins of the UK’s once sturdy, publicly funded operatic edifice – ENO, maimed and instructed by Arts Council England to move out of London; Opera North ominously announcing an “organisational review” to create a “leaner, more agile structure” – the dismembering of WNO is particularly inexplicable. It is central to Welsh culture, founded by local miners and others, building on their homeland’s reputation as the land of song.
At the end of WNO’s three-night tour to the city, after Verdi’s Rigoletto, Philip Lloyd-Evans, a longtime chorus member, spoke from the stage. As well as cuts in vital education and outreach, he said, performances had been cancelled in Bristol and Llandudno, with Liverpool as a venue already lost entirely. He acknowledged that individuals would suffer, but a prime concern, too, was for the inevitable impact on quality: “We are a team. What you have seen and heard tonight is only really possible because this team – the chorus and the orchestra – works together all the time, day in, day out.”
I was there to catch up, belatedly, with Puccini’s triple bill Il trittico, a co-production with Scottish Opera, here given as a semi-staging because of weight restrictions at New Theatre. The top-class orchestra, incisively conducted by Alexander Joel, all wore “Protect WNO” T-shirts instead of their usual black. As the theatre has no pit, they were visible throughout. There was no forgetting their plight. Likewise, the chorus, not in costume, wore campaign T-shirts. Nothing, though, could dent the supreme gusto and expertise of these players and singers.
Led by the thrilling Swansea-born soprano Natalya Romaniw, as Giorgetta in Il tabarro, and in the title role in Suor Angelica, the ensemble cast had no weak link. As her lover, Michele, in Il tabarro, and as the Florentine trickster Schicchi, the Uruguayan baritone Dario Solari was smouldering one moment, canny and conniving the next. Puccini was at his most affecting: both Il tabarro and Suor Angelica are compressions of tragic, unbearable pain. Gianni Schicchi – sharp, funny, tight as clockwork – had the audience laughing out loud.
One unmissable prospect in WNO’s spring 2025 season is a new production of Britten’s Peter Grimes, with the tenor Nicky Spence making his debut in the title role. He was the star turn – and how – in the closing concert of this year’s Oxford international song festival (which has, without fuss and reflecting its wide linguistic reach, dropped “Lieder” from its name). In a fortnight of 70 events including talks and masterclasses, this annual festival has become a crucible for emerging talent as well as a platform for professionals in full flight. In the final three days I heard contrasting concerts at the highest level.
At Holywell Music Room, the American duo of baritone Will Liverman and pianist Jonathan King gave a recital that opened with Schubert then caught fire with American repertoire by Harry T Burleigh, Florence Price, Ella Fitzgerald, Libby Larsen, with two of Liverman’s own lyrical and wistful songs to end. Next day, again at Holywell, the Russian American soprano Erika Baikoff and the South African-born pianist James Baillieu gave an impeccable programme, bursting with drama and intensity, of predominantly Russian-language song: four by Tchaikovsky and Britten’s Pushkin settings, The Poet’s Echo.
The finale, on Saturday at SJE Arts, opened with Gabriel Fauré’s La bonne chanson, settings of poems by Paul Verlaine for voice, piano and string quintet. Spence, joined by Julius Drake (piano), the Piatti Quartet and Leon Bosch (double bass), revelled in the delicate, impressionistic textures of the nine songs, so adored by Marcel Proust, though others thought the whole cycle, and its odd instrumentation, mad. On the night we would turn our clocks back, Spence gave particular zest to the last song, L’hiver a cessé (Winter Is Over), full of dreams of long days and blue skies.
In the second half of the recital, with Drake game and willing on piano, the Scottish tenor displayed his unstoppable and expansive energy, adaptability and wit, from Ravel and Poulenc to John Dankworth, Victoria Wood and Stephen Sondheim. When he sang Richard Strauss – Zueignung and Cäcilie – he reminded us of his gifts for the long phrase, and for powerful expression, in whichever language. Tom Lehrer’s Masochism Tango had Spence rotating and boogying across the stage, bristling and masterful. In the midst of all came Noël Coward’s Any Little Fish. Only Nicky Spence could persuade a self-respecting Oxford audience to buzz, quack, woof, moo and coo along. It was over too soon.
Star ratings (out of five)
Il trittico ★★★★★
Oxford international song festival ★★★★★
