Communities of Butetown and Grangetown in Cardiff come together with Music Theatre Wales and Fio to create brand new Community Opera ‘The Trial of Dhegdheer’.
Leading contemporary opera company Music Theatre Wales and Fio theatre company are coming together with the communities of Butetown and Grangetown in Cardiff to create a brand new community opera The Trial of Dhegdheer, to be performed this June (13) at Grange Pavilion. A specially created artistic team has been assembled by the companies designed to work with members of the community to create and produce an individual piece of music theatre mixing ancient stories, modern myth and songs.
The creative team includes theatre and opera director and Fio Artistic Director Mathilde Lopéz, returning to opera following Out of Her Mouth, her 2023 piece on Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre with Mahogony Opera and her 2022 production of Carmen at Longborough Festival Opera. The team also includes poet, community activist and actor Ali Goolyad, electronic pop and soul producer/singer songwriter Eadyth, musician and producer Ani Glass and South African contemporary music composer Robert Fokkens. Design is by Gerald Tyler and Dotty Squibb with Gerald Tyler also providing construction and technical facilitation.
The companies are currently running rehearsal sessions on Thursday evenings across Grangetown and Butetown, with main rehearsals taking place in the week building up to the performance, from Monday 8th June. There will be two performances of the opera at 2pm and 4pm at Grange Pavilion in Grangetown on Saturday 13 June.
Adjua Mintaah Mensah, Music Theatre Wales’ Creative Producer said, “After planning the opera for so long it is great to see the project come into fruition. The rehearsal sessions are going really well and everyone taking part is really enjoying the process of putting a brand new opera and piece of storytelling together.”
The backstory for the performance will be the community trial of Dhegdheer, a famous Somali folktale about a terrifying cannibalistic ogress with one exceptionally long ear, as a way of presenting a wide range of perspectives, from the complications of recycling bags to carriages of injustice. Community participants will play keys roles as jurors, witnesses and the Judge. Gweneth Ann Rand who also performed in MTW and Fio’s The Jollof House Party Opera, will join the community cast in the central role of Dhegdheer along with local baritone Thomas Coltman as the Prosecutor.
The performance will culminate in the traditional Somali singing form of Buraanbur led by Ifraax.
Music Theatre Wales Artistic Director Michael McCarthy said, “This opera will build on previous activity by Music Theatre Wales in the area, including magical showings of our Street Art Operas at Grange Pavilion and Loudoun Square in Butetown and performances of The Jollof House Party Opera at Grange Pavilion, but this time it is thrilling to see people from the area participating in and co-creating with this amazing artistic team a new and totally original opera.”
Fio Artistic Director and the opera’s director Mathilde Lopez adds, “It has been joyful to work with community participants and local artists to create this absurdist trial, a trial that plays with a Somali tale to expose real prejudices and echoes recurrent miscarriages of justice for people of colour in South Wales. The fact that we have engaged everyone to wrestle with music and play on such a subject is for me and everyone at Fio an enormous success.”
For more information and for tickets to see the opera at Grange Pavilion on Saturday 13 June visit: The Trial of Dhegdheer. Audiences are invited to pay what they can for each performance.