- Over 80 young singers will take part in an eco-friendly musical showcase
- The performance combines two classic stories: the well-known tale of the Pied Piper and a beloved story from Rudyard Kipling’s Just So collection
WNO Youth Opera will present their annual showcase later this month, with a focus on minimising the carbon footprint of live performance.
Over 80 young singers will take part in The Pied Piper of Hamelin & The Crab That Played With The Sea, a production that makes use of a number of recycled materials. Much of the showcase’s costumes and props are either previously owned items or have been repurposed from past WNO productions.
WNO Youth Opera was established in the mid-1990’s as a way for the Company to share its love of opera with aspiring young singers. It is an award-winning training programme for young people, aged from 10 – 25 years, who love to sing and perform.
This year’s performance combines the well-known tale of the Pied Piper with a classic story from Rudyard Kipling’s Just So collection. The Pied Piper of Hamlin is a supernatural fable sprinkled with satire and follows a town being rid of rats with the help of a magical pipe. This is followed by The Crab That Played With The Sea, a reimagined version of Kipling’s celebrated story about a troublemaking crab that learns a lesson to become more humble.
The eco-friendly approach was a priority for the production’s Designer Céleste Langrée in collaboration with Costume Supervisor Bea Viña. Their aim was to encourage the inclusion of ‘pre-loved’ items, whilst also modifying existing props from WNO’s archive. Céleste says:
‘As a designer, I treat it as a conscious challenge from the beginning. I’m delighted that we managed to have most of our costumes come second hand. Many came from charity shops here in Cardiff, and others were reused from the costume stock here at WNO. When it came to props, my goal was also to re-use as much as possible.’
The young cast, aged between 10 and 18, are not only required to sing and act in this production, they must also operate a variety of puppets which bring larger than life characters to the stage. Some puppets, such as the giant crab, must be operated by as many as four participants at a time, with facial expressions and individual movements controlled by separate performers that all perform as one.
In The Pied Piper of Hamelin, participants have created DIY puppets using old socks to create the impression of thousands of scampering rats on stage. Each rat has been designed by each performer and is a character in its own right. This encourages a more personal and creative contribution to the production, whilst also continuing the environmental efforts of the showcase as a whole, with the use of design materials sourced from old, discarded clothing.
Céleste adds: ‘Repurposing, sharing, re-cycling old pieces of set, props or costume should be the industry norm. This is a great example of how we can reframe our views of performance and make it more environmentally friendly.’
The Pied Piper of Hamelin & The Crab That Played With The Sea will be performed in Wales Millennium Centre’s Weston Studio on Saturday 27 and 28 May. For further information please visit wno.org.uk
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Welsh National Opera is the national opera company for Wales, funded by the Arts Councils of Wales and England to provide large scale opera, concerts and outreach work across Wales and to major cities in the English regions. We endeavour to provide transformative experiences through our education and outreach programme and our award-winning digital projects. We work with our partners to discover and nurture young operatic talent, and we aim to show future generations that opera is a rewarding, relevant and universal art form with the power to affect and inspire.
WNO production images are available for download at wno.org.uk/press
Further information on WNO’s productions can be found at wno.org.uk
- WNO gratefully acknowledges the generous bequest of the late David Seligman and the Philippa and David Seligman Gift
- Mae WNO yn cydnabod rhodd hael y diweddar David Seligman a’r Rhodd Philippa a David Seligman
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