Y Tŵr
Chamber Opera in 3 Acts for soprano, baritone and ensemble
- Submitting institution
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Bangor University / Prifysgol Bangor
- Unit of assessment
- 26 - Modern Languages and Linguistics
- Output identifier
- UoA26_66
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Based on the well-known Welsh play by Gwenlyn Parry and adapted by librettist Gwyneth Glyn, the chamber opera Y Tŵr (‘The Tower’) explores the emotions and relationship between two companions during their lifetime. Set in a room in a tower, a metaphor for the different periods in both the characters’ lives, ‘they journey from youth to old age, from love to despair, from desire to disillusionment.’
The research involved included the different approaches of setting the text in relationship to the music that would support the actions of the characters in 1970s rural Wales with the combining of different tonalities (tonal and atonal passages) with the use of (octatonic) modes that are directly linked with the various emotions of the characters and the unfolding of the drama. The opera also involved the research into different ways of musically representing the ageing of characters, focusing on gesture, tessitura, melisma and harmonies.
Y Tŵr is unique in that it is the first ever professionally commissioned opera in the Welsh language and was premiered by Music Theatre Wales (directed by Michael McCarthy and conducted by Richard Baker) at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff in 2017, followed by a UK wide tour.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
