It’s hearing the young voices that take you aback with this charming double feature from Welsh National Youth Opera. So much talent on display in this double bill of The Pied Piper Of Hamelin / The Crab That Played With The Sea in Cardiff Bay’s Wales Millennium Centre. Promise is an overused word, yet it applies greatly here.
Opening work The Pied Piper Of Hamelin is very well known even today. With the verse of Robert Browning, the sweet score of Jonathan Willcocks is attractive – not a servant to the poetry, but rather its companion. The English was very clear, the children had benefitted from their rehearsal time, and the clothes and set from Céleste Langrée were highlights.
Director Angharad Lee can boast of the work she’s done in Wales: no doubt the workshops were fun for the youth, and the addition of puppetry amounts to another magic wand flicker from her. Though maybe a little more gesticulation might go a long way, the kids fared well with the Pied Piper, an intimidating puppet who loomed over all.
Whilst the first story of rats and vanishing children is common knowledge, I wasn’t familiar with The Crab That Played With The Sea. Taken from Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, this tale – though slight – is an undersea world of its own, about a crab hellbent on both domination and solitude. The music, by Paul Ayres, features piano and two percussionists: evocative, and quite stirring for what should be a simple children’s opera. Sat within the audience, music director Dan Perkin had patience to spare, thrilled to bring this unassuming show together.
Librettist Sarah L. Grange makes an impact with sparse writing, the mood being the focus here. Singer Weiying Sim is an older talent who I hope is going places, and just lovely as both Piper and the Eldest Magician; Rhianna Hogg also stands out as the Daughter. The journey into the sea she witnesses gives her reflective vocals, a bystander to the strange creation myth occurring in front of her.
The start and end of this Welsh National Youth Opera showcase features music from John Leavitt’s Missa Festiva, giving both sets of singers time to shine in a more concert-like context. The families around me were so happy to see their little ones on stage: I think we forget that it can all start here.
The Pied Piper Of Hamelin / The Crab That Played With The Sea, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay, Sat 27 May
words JAMES ELLIS photos KIRSTEN MCTERNAN
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