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Migrations Will Todd
–Overview
Through six stories, by writers from diverse backgrounds, Welsh National Opera explores migration.
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, we have decided to postpone the premiere of Will Todd’s new opera Migrations that was due to open in Cardiff in October 2020 prior to performances in Plymouth, Bristol, Birmingham, Llandudno and Southampton.
Migrations is an exceptionally ambitious project, with an expanded creative team and a cast of 100 including a gospel choir, a children's chorus, Bollywood dancers, refugees and soloists from across the world. Our Youth & Community team was due to start education work with schools straight after Easter which is not now possible to deliver.
Commissioned to coincide with the sailing of The Mayflower 400 years ago, Migrations interweaves six stories, by writers from diverse backgrounds, exploring the theme of migration through the eyes of different characters experiencing migration in very different ways. We remain absolutely committed to Migrations, and want to ensure that we give this important new commission the preparation and rehearsal it deserves and needs.
It will therefore now open our Autumn Season in 2021 as part of our WNO @ 75 anniversary year alongside two other operas in Cardiff and on tour. We are currently in dialogue with all the venues to finalise dates for Autumn 2021, and they will be in contact directly with ticket bookers with details over the next few weeks. Please bear with us, as it will take a little time to achieve this. We are not expecting to announce our full Autumn Season until early 2021, but we will confirm Migrations performance dates much sooner.
Since the beginning of time nature has migrated effortlessly to brave the elements and improve on circumstance, but when it comes to the human race it always seems more complicated.
Through a series of six stories, by six writers from diverse backgrounds, Welsh National Opera’s new opera explores the highs and lows of migration: from the migration of birds to the sailing of The Mayflower 400 years ago; from the story of an Afro-Caribbean slave in Bristol to the experience of Indian doctors working in the NHS.
Migrations is a hugely ambitious new opera from British composer Will Todd. An expanded WNO Orchestra is joined by a cast of 100 performers, including a gospel choir, Bollywood dancers and a children’s chorus. This is epic drama on a huge scale, and an unmissable live experience.
Good to know
Approx two hours and 20 minutes with one interval
Sung in English with surtitles in English and Welsh
Cast & Creative
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Synopsis
Mayflower
Written by Sir David Pountney
The story of the group of settlers who sailed to America on the Mayflower exactly 400 years ago, seeking freedom from religious persecution in Britain.
Treaty 6
Written by Sarah Woods
The ‘first nation’ Cree people’s reaction to the experience of inward migration, displacement and colonisation.
Flight, Death or Fog
Written by Edson Burton & Miles Chambers
The story of Pero, an Afro-Caribbean slave in the ownership of a wealthy merchant family in 18th Century Bristol.
Birds
Written by Eric Ngalle Charles
Migration as a natural phenomenon, a way of life.
The English Lesson
Written by Sarah Woods
Refugees and asylum seekers who experience migration as a process forced upon them by economic hardship, violence of intolerance.
This is the Life!
Witten by Shreya Sen-Handley
A humorous look at the experience of Indian doctors in the NHS.