Another show finally out after COVID, this massive production from Welsh National Opera promised a lot and did not deliver on a lot of its promises. Migrations feels like the operatic equivalent of throwing everything at the wall and everything appearing to stick.
Its director David Pountney, who can’t seem to get enough of WNO, also wrote the libretto for the Mayflower section of these sprawling, tableaux-spanning centuries. Children sing as a flock of birds on the quest to find that certain rock: perhaps the most ludicrous part of a busy, bolstering show detailing injustice after injustice. Musically, Will Todd perhaps over-eggs the pudding, with a fairly safe, grounded score where moments of discord are fleeting. A letdown for such a stimulating enterprise filled with potential.
We see slave servants, fittingly located in Bristol, whose story doesn’t really go anywhere; those who have just made it to the UK are given English lessons, where they talk of war, poverty and desire for freedom. I bordered on being overwhelmed trying to pinpoint each story and its relation to what has just passed. The surtitle screen kept us abreast of the change of setting, but this does little to mesh these stories together, other than in broad theme strokes. A gospel choir was used sparingly, its beauty infusing the space in rare outings.
The Bollywood sequence heralds the familiar story of Indian doctors travelling to the UK for a better life. They are met with small wages and rampant racism. The most absurd moments come with a fever dream sequence featuring an Enoch Powell sort, spewing bile about other races. This story ends in an arbitrary way, with rioting racists injured and seeing the error of their ways when treated by selfsame doctors. More successful is the story of a First Nation tribe fighting to stop a pipeline over their land in Canada. Dawn, here played by Marion Newman, held up the more interesting part of the tapestry; her tale could have easily made a more compelling little opera, with recent developments in North America and the First Nations.
Tom Randle plays three drastically different roles, Aubrey Allicock does what he can playing Pero Jones the slave and Felix Kemp enjoys a petite part as Syrian refugee Adham. There are many more people who could be mentioned – the WNO orchestra and chorus always excel – and if the production itself didn’t work perfectly, conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren did a bang-up job of keeping it in one piece. Credit due, too, for Brittany Olivia Logan’s powerful vocals as Pero’s wife Bridget, sitarist Jasdeep Singh Degun and the five writers behind each narrative cluster’s poetry section. Ultimately, Migrations’ lack of focus is offputting, but the efforts made in this ambitious work warrant applause.
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay, Wed 29 June
Also on Fri 1 + Sat 2 July; tickets: £15-£51. Migrations will tour the UK in October and November. Info: here
words JAMES ELLIS
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