ABC OF OPERA
Grand
Theatre, Swansea (10.3.24)
What Mark Llewelyn Evans is achieving with his Academy of
Barmy Composers is nothing short of amazing, and valuable beyond riches in
these philistine times when Gradgrindish governments are cutting funding to arts
education.
When two lots of 900 primary schoolchildren each time (from
23 Swansea schools) gasp at what they are witnessing in a beautiful theatre the
likes of which they have probably only ever dreamed of, that is quite a start for
an hour of enthralling interaction with ABC’s PantOpera drama of good
vanquishing evil.
We had all the elements of panto (“Oh no. he’s not!”
and “She’s behind you!”), but this time with all the cardboard characters as composers
of the classical period: Windy Wolfie, Hectic Haydn, Charismatic Chevalier
(St-Georges de Boulogne) and Tortellini Rossini, who can “compose-a faster than
a-cookin’ da pasta”. We had a wicked queen, Victoria Joyce a malevolent Queen
of the Night hell-bent on stealing the Magic Flute, and thus wiping out all the
composers. And we had a Cinderella, Nannerl Mozart, who has done so much to
assist her brother Wolfie, but who dreams of acceptance as a composer in her
own right.
Evans himself sings out of a trunk, a cross between
Papageno and Buttons, trying his best to vanquish the Queen. His interaction
with the audience is superb, and gets them immediately on his side – and therefore
on the side of opera.
Behind the performers is a remarkable orchestra,
students of the Swansea Schools’ Music Service, plus their peripatetic teachers
and some returning alumni, conducted by John Quirk, whose musical arrangements
underpinning the whole hour were adroit and apposite. There were quotes from
Haydn, Rossini, Mozart (words even to the opening of the G minor Symphony),
with the Cats’ Duet between the Queen of the Night and the empowered Nannerl,
an absolute highlight. Back-projected cartoons and emojis all add to the fun.
There was also empathetic signing for the
hearing-impaired, and enthusiasm in the audience from those with learning
difficulties. Evans had told me, “We don’t exclude anybody”, and as his
co-lyricist and illustrator Lorraine King told me, it was an autistic child who saw the letters
ABC and shouted out that they also stood for “AnyBody Can”.
Christopher Morley