Introducing Video of the Week from Wales Arts Review. We’ll be showcasing some of the best new art in Wales with a new video shared every week. From music to drama and everything in between, videos will not be limited by medium. Today we take a look at “Intermezzo”, Ifor ap Glyn’s poem celebrating 75 years of the Welsh National Opera.
To mark the 75 years since its first performance, the Welsh National Opera commissioned Intermezzo, a poem by Ifor ap Glyn, the National Poet for Wales. Read by a host of prominent Welsh voices in this special video, the poem chronicles the rich history of the WNO, from its humble beginnings at the end of the Second World War (‘From a house in Llandaf North, to a chapel in Crwys Road, aria by aria, peace was sung anew and then wandered the world over’) to its present-day status as an opera company known the world over.
The poem also makes a nod to the impacts of Covid on the Welsh arts – and the prospect of a brighter future post-pandemic (‘Because this year, the medium can be reborn, we’re learn to sing together once again’).
Featuring big names including opera singers Sir Bryn Terfel and Rebecca Evans, actors Dame Siân Phillips, Mark Lewis Jones and Rakie Ayola, musicians Caryl Parry Jones, Catrin Finch and Dafydd Iwan, and sports legends Baroness Tanni Grey Thompson and Sir Gareth Edwards, Intermezzo is an uplifting celebration of the WNO, which has entertained audiences across Wales since its first ever performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Cardiff on April 15th, 1946.
The WNO Chorus and Orchestra will be releasing a newly recorded version of Easter Hymn from “Cavalleria rusticana”, which as part of a double bill with “Pagliacci” was the WNO’s first ever show on that evening in Cardiff 75 years ago.
Watch the video for Intermezzo by Ifor ap Glyn for the Welsh National Opera (available in Welsh and English), below:
Intermezzo in Welsh:
Intermezzo in English:
Find out more about the Welsh National Opera’s 75th birthday celebrations here.
