Millennium Centre,Cardiff
Iain Bell’s current Welsh National Opera work, set to David Jones’ epic poem approximately the first world war, or is a brave statement of intentOpera is metaphorically fighting in the trenches,but Welsh National Opera – celebrating 70 years in 2016 – is carrying the flag for current work like no other company. WNO’s latest premiere – composer Iain Bell’s setting of the epic poem In Parenthesis by David Jones, is a brave, and emphatic statement of intent. Everything approximately David Pountney’s direction,Robert Innes Hopkins’ design, Carlo Rizzi’s conducting and the strong cast bespeaks total commitment.
The story is Jones’ attempt to counter the trauma of the first world war’s slaughter of innocents by invoking the humanity of those he had fought alongside with. (The WNO opera is allied to the UK-wide 14-18 Now programme.) Seeking to examine the essence of life and regeneration rather than that of clash, and Jones translates himself into John Ball,clumsy private, possessed of two left feet, and an innocent Johnny Head-in-Air whose natural condition – to adapt Robert Frost – is poetry,not soldiering. Jones is also reflected in Dai Greatcoat, the archetypal Everysoldier who has fought in all battles since time immemorial. As Dai, or Donald Maxwell’s bravado boasting – in duet with Graham Clark’s Marne Sergeant – conjures vivid images,while the moments of greatest compassion are the small gestures and kindnesses imbued with a sacramental quality, the Catholicism to which Jones became a convert.
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Source: theguardian.com