page_title: Welsh National Opera
section_title: Consolidating: 1950s and 60s
hierarchical_section_title: Welsh National Opera / Consolidating: 1950s and 60s
caption_attribution_description: The New Theatre, Cardiff, Wales
context_page_description: Welsh National Opera is an opera company based in Cardiff, Wales; it gave its first performances in 1946. It began as a mainly amateur body and transformed into an all-professional ensemble by 1973. In its early days the company gave a single week's annual season in Cardiff, gradually extending its schedule to become an all-year-round operation, with its own salaried chorus and orchestra. It has been described by The New York Times as "one of the finest operatic ensembles in Europe".
  For most of its existence the company lacked a permanent base in Cardiff, but in 2004 it moved into the new Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay. The company tours nationally and internationally, giving more than 120 performances annually, with a repertoire of eight operas each year, to a combined audience of more than 150,000 people. Its most frequent venues other than Cardiff are Llandudno in Wales and Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Plymouth, and Southampton in England.
  Singers who have been associated with the company include Geraint Evans, Thomas Allen, Anne Evans, and Bryn Terfel.
context_section_description: In 1952 the company moved its Cardiff venue to the Sophia Gardens Pavilion (built for the Festival of Britain), with the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra as the company's orchestra, replacing the previous ad hoc ensemble. The Pavilion was acoustically mediocre and lacked an orchestra pit; two years later the company moved again, to the New Theatre where it played Cardiff seasons across the next fifty years. The 1952 season attracted particular interest because it included what was then a rarity: Verdi's Nabucco. The company built a reputation for staging seldom-seen Verdi works, including The Sicilian Vespers staged in the same year, I Lombardi in 1956, and The Battle of Legnano, under the shortened title The Battle, in 1960. The 1952 Nabucco was the WNO's first production for which costumes and scenery were specially designed (by Patrick Robertson) rather than hired.
  In 1953 the company staged its first work by a Welsh composer: Menna by Arwel Hughes. The composer conducted, and the leads were sung by two professional guest stars, Richard Lewis and Elsie Morison. The same year marked WNO's first appearances outside Wales, playing a week at Bournemouth in April, and a week at Manchester in October, when The Manchester Guardian found the soloists first-rate but the chorus disappointing, in both Nabucco and Il trovatore. A reviewer in The Musical Times commented on potential difficulties in assembling the wholly amateur chorus for performances beyond daily travelling range of their day jobs. By the time of the company's first London season – a week at Sadler's Wells in 1955 – the chorus was judged to be "lively and exciting" (The Musical Times), "vibrant" and "moving" (The Times) and "joyous" (The Manchester Guardian).The second season at Sadler's Wells in the summer of 1956, included productions of Nabucco, I Lombardi and Lohengrin,  achieving rave reviews. Kenneth Loveland of the South Wales Argus wrote a glowing piece under his byline 'Stroller' "Tonight, amongst working-class streets of the Angel, Islington, I was privileged to witness a body of men and women doing more for Wales than all your sounding harps...or tub thumping politicians".
  By the mid-1950s professional singers were cast in leading roles in most productions; they included Walter Midgley in Tosca and La bohème (1955), Raimund Herincx in Mefistofele (1957), Heather Harper in La traviata (1957), and Joan Hammond in Madame Butterfly (1958). A possibility of strengthening the professional element of the company was mooted in 1958, when a merger was proposed with the Carl Rosa Company, which was in financial difficulties. The proposal was not followed through and WNO continued independently while the Carl Rosa folded.
  During the 1960s the company continued to widen its range. Its first Wagner production, Lohengrin, and its first Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro, were both performed in 1962, conducted by Charles Groves. Another Welsh opera, Hughes's Serch yw'r Doctor ("Love, the Doctor") was staged in 1960. The popular Italian repertoire remained the core of the annual seasons, mostly directed by the head of production, John Moody. Leading roles were taken by rising stars such as John Shirley-Quirk, Gwyneth Jones, Thomas Allen, Josephine Barstow and Margaret Price, the last of whom made her operatic debut with the company in 1962. Established singers guesting with the company included Geraint Evans who played the title role in Don Pasquale in 1966, and Ian Wallace in the same part the following year. Evans was also seen as Leporello in Don Giovanni in 1966 and as Falstaff in 1969.
  The gradual switch from amateur to professional continued in 1968, when for the first time the chorus was supplemented by a smaller, professional group of singers; the mix of amateur and professional choristers continued over the next five years. At the end of the 1960s the main WNO company, now a year-round operation, consisted of 8 salaried principal singers, 57 guest soloists and a chorus of 90 amateurs and 32 professionals. As well as the Bournemouth players, the company engaged the
caption: The New Theatre, WNO's Cardiff venue for 50 years from 1954
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