Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It was heartbreaking to see the Welsh National Opera Chorus and Orchestra wearing \u201cSave our WNO\u201d T-shirts when they came on stage for the curtain calls. In its heyday this company brought kudos and respect to Wales with its international reputation. How did it come to this?Next year will mark Welsh National Opera\u2019s 80th anniversary, but it is only able to present two new opera productions and two revivals over the 2025-26 season \u2014 slim pickings. It is a marvel that the company can still summon the ambition to stage challenging repertoire.Last year\u2019s dazzlingly inventive production of Britten\u2019s Death in Venice was the highlight of the UK opera season. Now the company is back with Britten and a new production of Peter Grimes, another impressive piece of work even if it falls short of the previous achievement.Most important, the company\u2019s own resources are key to its success. The WNO Orchestra was on top form and music director Tom\u00e1\u0161 Hanus increasingly exerted a grip on dramatic tension, the storm interlude reaching hurricane force. With the WNO Chorus giving its all, the musical performance was first-rate.Melly Still\u2019s production opens with the body of the dead apprentice being dragged across the stage before the music starts. By homing in on the suffering of the child \u2014 the dead apprentice reappears later in Grimes\u2019s hut, as the anguished fisherman is haunted by past events \u2014 she sets a chilling tone that threads through the performance. The stage is almost bare throughout, the wind-blown Suffolk coast suggested by little more than a boat hanging from the ceiling. This is decor enough for Britten\u2019s bleak landscape, but Still cannot resist a lot of silly stage business involving chairs, doorframes and windows and throwing in a movement group of four identikit apprentices (it certainly changes the sexual undercurrent of the opera when they are played by young women, not boys). Ditch the movement group and this could be the harrowing production it sets out to be.In Nicky Spence\u2019s Peter Grimes it has at its centre a portrayal of riveting intensity. The way he brings the text alive is second to none and he has mastered the role\u2019s vocal tests, even if the scene in the fisherman\u2019s hut takes him to the limit, as it does every tenor. Here is a Grimes who genuinely has optimism that a better future might be possible, so when the tragic end comes, it feels even more painful.Sally Matthews\u2019s Ellen Orford equally tugs strongly at the heart, though her singing is less secure, and David Kempster makes a laid-back Balstrode. The best of the supporting cast are to be found elsewhere, including the class double-act of mezzos Sarah Connolly and Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Auntie and Mrs Sedley, and outstanding cameos from Dominic Sedgwick as a vivid Ned Keene and Callum Thorpe, singing strongly as Hobson.At the end WNO\u2019s joint general directors and CEOs Sarah Crabtree and Adele Thomas took the stage to call for greater support of the arts. Their speeches were fervent, but this performance had already made the case more powerfully than words could.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606To June 7, wno.org.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It was heartbreaking to see the Welsh National Opera Chorus and Orchestra wearing \u201cSave our WNO\u201d T-shirts when they came on stage for the curtain calls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":266747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-266746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266748,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266746\/revisions\/266748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}