Bill ShanklySome people think that football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.
Football and singing share a long history, and a stadium without the home and away fans singing their support or derision will always feel strangely vacant. With Wales’ World Cup campaign underway, we take a look back to see how football and opera have come together over the years and delivered some incredibly moving moments in the beautiful game.
We begin in Italy, on the eve of the 1990 Italian World Cup. The Three Tenors, composed of Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti perform at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome. The three talented singers tackled Puccini’s triumphant Nessun Dorma in a performance that would be remembered and celebrated for years to come.
In 2016, football team Leicester City shocked the world by becoming winners of the topflight of English football, the Premier League. During the celebrations, manager Claudio Ranieri led compatriot and famous tenor Andrea Bocelli to the centre of the King Power Stadium, where he performed Nessun Dorma before 32,000 Leicester fans celebrating the club being crowned champions. Bocelli, an avid fan of football and Italian team Inter Milan has often expressed his admiration for the beautiful game, saying:
Andrea BocelliFootball can arouse similar feelings to those that fire you up in an opera theatre, in some ways. On the opera stage, just as on the football field, we have an arena of heroes
Leicester City aren’t the only English team with a connection to opera, however; before becoming the favourite of Lord Alan Sugar, Prokofiev’s The Montagues and Capulets rang out of the Stadium of Light after it’s completion in 1997. Also known as Dance of the Knights, the intimidating music from Prokofiev’s 1935 opera Romeo and Juliet heralded the competing team leaving the tunnel and running onto the pitch at Sunderland A.F.C’s home ground.
Any football fan will know the Champion’s League famous anthem, played before each game in the competition and on the television coverage is a staple of European football. Perhaps less known is the origins of this anthem. Written by Tony Britten in 1992, it was inspired by Handel’s The Priest of Zadok, itself used during the coronations of the British monarchy. The rising themes and climactic horns in Britten’s adaptation form the perfect backdrop for the triumph and misery that makes football the beautiful game.
As we follow the Welsh Football team on their journey through the World Cup in Qatar, enjoy WNO Chorus and WNO Associate Artist Dafydd Allen’s performance of Yma O Hyd.