Ahead of Welsh National Opera’s Spring 2023 Season and the first performance of our brand new opera, Blaze of Glory!, we sat down with composer, David Hackbridge Johnson, to find out more about his musical inspirations for the opera and his experience of working on the production.
‘I will never forget the first time I heard a Welsh Male Voice Choir; not in the shadow of the Welsh hills or within the reassuring stone walls of a Welsh chapel, but in the town hall in Cheam, Greater London where I saw a performance given by the Cheam Welsh Male Voice Choir. From the first note I felt something happening in the room, and inside me. I was shattered by the end of the performance. What has stayed with me for 35 years or more, is both the sound of the choir and the visceral response it provoked.
When I was approached by Emma Jenkins to work with her on Welsh National Opera’s new opera, Blaze of Glory!, I was both delighted and slightly wary. As I looked over Emma’s ingenious, touching and funny libretto set at a time when 1950s pit closures were already affecting the lives of mining communities in Wales, I thought, ‘how am I going to move from symphonies to male voice choirs, doo-wop groups and jazz numbers?’ – for the libretto calls for all of these styles and more.
The opera calls for areas of choral writing that I had not attempted before, and in searching for inspiration, I found myself remembering the emotion and sound of the Cheam Welsh Male Voice Choir all those years ago. Not all music for the opera was created from scratch as the libretto calls for several set pieces from the traditional Welsh Male Voice Choir repertoire, and as such, traditional Welsh hymns frame the key points in the structure. I was also able to use works by other composers. Slotted into the operetta are Le Tyrol by Ambroise Thomas, and The Martyrs of the Arena by Laurent de Rillé, both heard where Eisteddfodau from the 1950s are recreated on stage.
The story of Blaze of Glory! has allowed me to use many of my own compositional specialisms, but more importantly than that, the story shows a troubled community coming together to renew their cultural and spiritual lives. It is a work that celebrates collective experience, where individuals come together to lift themselves from doubt and hopelessness. In these insecure times I think Blaze of Glory! can speak to us on many levels and if it can do so even in part, I feel that my efforts will have succeeded.’
Blaze of Glory! opens at Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre on Thursday 23 February 2023, with subsequent performances on 10, 14, 18 March. The opera will then embark on a tour, visiting Llandudno, Milton Keynes, Bristol, Birmingham, and Southampton, until 20 May.