WNO launches summer programme

Welsh National Opera (WNO) has revealed its plans for this year’s summer season, with productions including a triad of Puccini operas, plus a concert tour and youth opera performance. The news follows the company's announcement last month that it would be shrinking its 2024-25 season due to ‘increasing financial challenges’.

The centrepiece of this summer’s programme will be Puccini’s Il trittico, which opens at Wales Millennium Centre on 15 June and runs until 22 June. The triad of one-act operas is presented in a co-production with Scottish Opera, which originally presented Il trittico in 2023 under the direction of Sir David McVicar. This year WNO will take on the challenge of presenting the three operas – Il tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi – in one night, under the baton of returning WNO conductor laureate Carlo Rizzi.

Rizzi said: 'Il trittico offers three short operas in one night: one dark and violent; one heart-breakingly sad; and one a witty comedy. These are very different stories with Puccini’s scores offering extraordinary dramatic variety to tell them. For me there is a very human and ever-present theme that ties them all together and that will be in my mind as I conduct… I simply cannot wait to begin the rehearsals and to give the first downbeat to the great WNO Orchestra after the success of our recent Puccini recording project and, before that, so many live Puccini performances in Wales and around England over the thirty years we have worked together.’

The summer season will also see WNO music director Tomáš Hanus conduct the WNO Orchestra’s summer concert tour for the first time, taking the orchestra to audiences across Wales and the South West. The programme is set to incorporate works from Smetana, in a nod to 2024 being the year of Czech music, plus Beethoven, Mozart and Schumann, with soloists including violinist David Adams and clarinettist Thomas Verity. The Orchestra will also make its annual appearance at Fishguard Festival of Music this July.

Welsh audiences will also have the opportunity to see next generation talent with WNO Youth Opera’s annual showcase at Wales Millennium Centre. On 25 and 26 May the youth company will present a new production of Cary John Franklin’s futuristic opera The Very Last Green Thing with a double cast of 70 young voices aged 10 to 18 alongside baritones HoWang Yuen and John Rhys Liddington from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. After the performance, singers from the 14 to 18 age group will perform their new micro-opera, Solomon’s Ring.