WELSH NATIONAL OPERA is en route to New Theatre Oxford with stunning new double-bill Bluebeard’s Castle + Oedipus Rex, and La bohème, to demonstrate the beginning of a bold, new era.
And here to tell us all about it is world renowned conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya who’ll be baton wielding over the first season of the reimagined WNO, and is enormously excited about what’s in store.
‘this is a huge opportunity for Oxford. It’s a really spectacular experience’
“It’s a massive production with a world class cast and chorus. Very few opera companies are still touring at this level, so this is a huge opportunity for Oxford. It’s a really spectacular experience,” she says.
So what’s in store? A new take on Puccini’s La bohème that captures the raw emotional intensity of young love and loss, and a striking double-bill of Bluebeard’s Castle + Oedipus Rex – two psychologically complex and musically gripping masterpieces brought together in one compelling evening.
“Bluebeard’s Castle is a richly romantic work with lots of colours and tones, which is not done very often. The evening will open with the sopranos and mezzos of the WNO Chorus performing Hildegard’s sacred, heavenly chants, (rather than Hildebrand), because the WNO wants to introduce more women’s choruses into their productions.
‘you can always feel the energy from the artists and the audience. It feels like a moment of rebirth and reinvention’
“And the brand new production of Oedipus Rex is a very dynamic and exciting production with a spectacular men’s chorus – there is a reason Wales is known as the land of song,” Lidiya says. “But it is also more cerebral, angular and specific, with powerful voices and active staging.
Very different pieces though? “One of the challenges is how to bring these two very different operas with their contrasting aesthetics to work together, despite being wildly different in terms of their musicality,” she says. It’s exciting to be able to provide such a contrast for the audience because sometimes double bills can be too similar. But here the contrast is evident. So there is something for everyone.”
So how does Lidiya prepare before each show? “I think a great deal about the arc of the evening from A-Z, because each performance is different. The audience, the venue, even the weather can affect how we experience a piece of music, and it’s about how to convey that emotional arc to the audience. So the theatre and the music need to be unified to be able to tell the story satisfactorily,” she explains.
‘the great thing about my job is that I get to be the lynchpin in the middle to ensure all the elements are as fluid and unified as possible’
“And the great thing about my job is that I get to be the lynchpin in the middle to ensure all the elements are as fluid and unified as possible.”
Isn’t that a huge pressure as a conductor to bring it all together? “My job is to enable, support and connect,” Lidiya says. “You are the person who empowers all the moving parts, so my focus is in helping others to bring their best selves to the moment and fusing them into the production.
It is a huge privilege. You can find yourself in the middle of making absolute magic, and if anything going wrong it’s your job to bring it back together. Either way it’s extremely exciting to be shaping these elements and bringing them together, which is really exhilarating.
On top of all this, the vast opera machine needed for touring is hugely complex and unwieldy? The inherent quality of opera is to make different art forms come together and that’s the magic. So there are hundreds of people uniting into one arc of creativity even though they are involved in different pieces of the puzzle.
‘my focus is in helping others to bring their best selves to the moment. It is a huge privilege. You can find yourself in the middle of making absolute magic’
“But it also needs to be very precise, because the acoustics are different in each venue – especially in Oxford which has the only uncovered orchestra pit – so there is a lot going on.”
Has Lidiya been enjoying the new productions? “It’s been an incredible experience and we hope everyone will come and join us.You can always feel the energy from both the artists and the audience. It feels like a moment of rebirth and reinvention.
“So come on this big, grandiose, emotional journey with us. This is an incredible opportunity to witness an opera like WNO at the highest level.
‘This is an incredible opportunity to go on an emotional journey with an opera like WNO’
“When you come through a financial crisis it’s the perfect time to rebuild, and these productions demonstrate exactly how innovative WNO can be at the highest level. It’s a smart choice.
“And usually the first thing that gets cut is the touring, but WNO have not done that. That to me is extremely meaningful,” Lidiya says.
WNO is at New Theatre Oxford with La bohème on Thursday 19 November BOOK HERE and Bluebeard’s Castle + Oedipus Rex on Saturday November 21 BOOK HERE
