Music theatreA radical aestheticrather than a formRian Evans

The advent of the Wales MillenniumCentre will change our perspective onmany aspects of what Richard Eyre hastermed lyric theatre, so it is perhaps timelyto look at the challenge this presents formusic theatre in particular. But beforeconsidering this challenge, it might be aswell to try to pin down the genre. Internetentries, however, only underline the difficultyof doing so with any precision. Typing ‘musictheatre’ into a search engine quickly producesMusic Theatre International, the agencywhich represents Miss Saigon, Les Misérablesand all of Stephen Sondheim. It’s certain thatthe likes of these will come to theMillennium Centre, but it’s not what thepurists mean by music theatre. It’s significantthat, from the outset, the Wales MillenniumCentre has had to accommodate two sets ofrequirements and figures: one set identifiedby the letters WNO and the other by CM,Cameron Mackintosh. It’s also significantthat the establishment of a biennialInternational Festival of Musical Theatreintended to alternate with the Singer of theWorld competition was an earlyacknowledgement of the fact that the WalesMillennium Centre would be as much amusical house as an opera house.

So back to the search engine. Add Walesto music theatre in the subject box and itobligingly comes up with Music TheatreWales, the Cardiff-based company whosework is regarded as the finest in Britain andamong the very finest anywhere. Thecompany took its cue from the progressiveideals of the English Opera Group (later theEnglish Music Theatre Company)originally formed by Benjamin Britten atAldeburgh. However, since what MusicTheatre Wales stages is primarilycontemporary chamber opera, our originalquestion immediately poses itself onceagain.

Perhaps the reality is that music theatre isa radical aesethetic rather than a form. It hasits roots in the experimental work of the1960s which attempted to shed theperceived excesses of opera. Its definingcharacteristic is a greater emphasis on thedramatic and the visual rather than onsimply musical elements. That emphasisought, in theory, only to be furtherenhanced in today’s climate with the newfreedom offered by a greater naturalism onthe one hand and by up-to-the-minutetechnology on the other. In recent years, theinfluence of the music theatre aesthetic onmainstream opera has been noticeable, andWelsh National Opera’s often statedcommitment to a heightened dramaticapproach is a reflection of the fact that, evenin very traditional opera, it’s no longersufficient for singers simply to stand anddeliver their arias. We can assume that theMillennium Centre, with its state-of-the-artfacilities, will permit WNO to embrace thiscommitment with a renewed vigour, but forMusic Theatre Wales the situation isdifferent. There’s no place for them in thenew set-up, where the main auditorium istoo big and the Centre’s studio too small.Performances can be programmed in thelatter space, but it has no pit for musicians,and will not suit the company’s present styleof work. Given that Music Theatre Walesenjoys associate status at the Royal OperaHouse, where they perform in CoventGarden’s Linbury Studio, it is both baffling

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T H E A T R E

As the countdown to the opening of theWales Millennium Centre gathers pace,Rian Evans laments the lack of a suitablespace for the performance of musictheatre, and suggests how this difficultymight be overcome so that one of Wales’smost progressive theatre forms can beenjoyed and celebrated by a wideraudience.

and ironic that Wales’s ‘other’ flagshipcompany will not be at the WMC, but it istypical of Music Theatre Wales’s inventiveapproach that they are determined to turnthings round and make the new landscapework in the company’s favour.

‘It has always been a frustration that theone place we’ve had trouble getting theright space to perform is Cardiff, our home city,’ says Artistic Director MichaelMcCarthy. ‘And, yes, in some ways, it’s evenmore ironic that we won’t fit anywhere intothe Millennium scheme. But we realisedthat our biggest successes of late had beenin the Cheltenham and Buxton Festivalsplaying in Matcham-designed theatres,where our work fits and sits well. So itseemed logical to think about Cardiff ’sNew Theatre (also Matcham), and when weperformed our last show, Param Vir’s Ion,we had a very positive experience there. Soas WNO moves out of the New into theCentre, there’s a logic about our movinginto the New and inviting audiences tolook at that space afresh.’

For McCarthy and MTW’s fellowfounder, Music Director Michael Rafferty,it was always a very deliberate choice toeschew large-scale work and, as McCarthypoints out, not for nothing is the companyslogan ‘Intimate opera with a big kick’. Butwhile it was MTW’s brilliant production ofHarrison Birtwhistle’s Punch and Judy –with all its raw power and immediacy itselfa milestone in the history of music theatre – which established the company’sreputation beyond doubt, McCarthy nowwants that characteristically powerful styleand energy to be channelled into newpieces, rather than contemporary classics.

‘Our work is not about theoverwhelming, indulgent spectacle that isopera, but about operating on a differentlevel of communication with the public,requiring a different kind of participationwhich is more like theatre. We invite theaudience to be part of the experience fromthe inside, so that it becomes a process ofgradual engagement rather than tellingthem how to feel. One of our fundamentals

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Music Theatre Wales, Punch and Judy (photograph by Marilyn Kingwill, courtesy Music Theatre Wales)

is that we regard the whole score as our text,not just the words of the libretto, and this iswhere the relationships we develop with thecomposers are crucial.’

McCarthy and Rafferty’s optimism isfurther supported by the news that MusicTheatre Wales will be getting funding fromthe Jerwood Charitable Foundation worth£60,000 over the next two years. This willhelp finance the two current projects, NigelOsborne’s The Piano Tuner and LynnePlowman’s House of the Gods, and will alsoallow the company to appoint two associatecomposers, reinforcing Music TheatreWales’s commitment to new work.

‘This kind of music needs perfomers of anincredibly high standard, and it’s gratifyingthat we have so many gifted and versatileWelsh singers,’ says McCarthy. ‘There issometimes an implication that music theatre isless demanding a genre than opera but, on thecontrary, it is more demanding and requiresreal virtuosity vocally as well as dramatic flair.For me, it has been particularly instructive tobe party to discussions currently underway inNorway, where a new national opera house isalso moving towards completion. Thatbuilding will also house a smaller space wheremusic theatre and chamber opera will bestaged, and it’s interesting that the Norwegiansare considering opening the smaller space firstin order to spotlight the more progressive formand to give it a chance to establish itself beforestaging the more traditional work in the mainauditorium.’

Since it is the intensity of the experiencethat makes music theatre such a forcefulmedium, it may be that, in terms of audienceresponse, a parallel should be withcontemporary cinema rather thanconventional opera. Judging from thesuccesses of the past couple of years, therecertainly appears to be a growing appetite fornew opera in England. Welsh bass GwynneHowell sang in Thomas Adès’s opera TheTempest, performed recently at CoventGarden to popular and critical acclaim, andhe would like to think that there will be morenew works produced in the MillenniumCentre. Howell has never had any qualms

about tackling new music, but he believes itspower to communicate is intricately boundup with the way that the human voice isused. ‘I’m less concerned with whether apiece is thought of as music theatre ormodern opera. Whatever the message orwhatever the music, a composer still needs towrite for a voice in a way that it can still singand I believe that as long as the music issingable, that is to say manageable by singers,then the whole business of connecting withan audience can produce powerful stuff. Theemotion is there, the drama is there and it’sthe voice which expresses it. In Wales thepower of the voice is something we’ve alwaysrecognised, and it would be great to thinkthat composers were going to be given theopportunity to create music that comes outof such a strong tradition.’

The Welsh composer John Metcalf is notcontent to accept the parameters of chamberopera or music theatre. He has a profoundcommitment to changing the whole audienceexperience in order to make it less formalisedand less hierarchical, and to push back theboundaries between different forms. To thatend, his piece Kafka’s Chimp, first producedby the Banff Arts Centre in Canada,dispenses with a conductor – Metcalf will notlicense the piece unless this condition is met– and also requires musicians to be charactersin the performance alongside the singers anddancers. His aim is to achieve the greatestpossible interaction between music, dance,lights and pictures.

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Music Theatre Wales, Gwyneth and the Green Knight (photograph by Mojo, courtesy Music Theatre Wales)

Kafka’s Chimp is about the natural order ofthings and the polarisation of instinct andintellect in society today, and it was inspiredby Franz Kafka’s short story ‘A Report to theAcademy’. A chimpanzee, captured on Africa’sGold Coast but now under the care of theAcademy’s director, discovers that in order tosurvive in the metropolis he must become ahuman. But as the chimp undergoes hismetamorphosis, the director himself is alsogradually transforming, and becomes achimp. This being Kafka, there is a pointwhen the audience looks at them both andcan’t tell which is which. The philosophical,ethical and moral concerns of the piece haveimportant implications, but so too do thework’s practical aspects. One of its mostsuccessful productions (rapturously received

across the Atlantic and in Sweden, but yet tobe staged in Metcalf ’s native Wales) took placein Pittsburgh Zoo. Kafka’s Chimp, simplybecause it happens not to require a pit, servesto illustrate the fact that the absence of‘proper’ facilities in the Millennium Centre’sstudio need not spell a negative or defeatistapproach. It could instead be the breedingground for exciting experiments by composerswho go beyond the stereotypical patternswhich have tended to characterise opera andmusic theatre to date.

The balance which music theatre seeks toachieve is arguably very close to the originalaims of the Florentines and Venetians whoestablished opera in the early seventeenthcentury – Claudio Monteverdi certainly putmusicians and singers together on stage insome of his pioneering work. The principlewhich remains is that the smaller scale andthe closer relationship of performers with theaudience permits an immediacy whichcreates an altogether more stimulating,thought-provoking and affecting experiencethan grander, bigger opera. In the ’80s andthe early part of the ’90s, Wales appeared tobe establishing itself as a hotbed for thedevelopment of new work. Welsh companies,Brith Gof among them, were stagingproductions which often aspired – whetherconsciously or unconsciously – to thecondition of music theatre. This spate of imaginative work unquestionablycontributed to the sense of lively engagementwith form and content which went beyondthe boundaries of conventional theatre, butthe funding changes of the ’90s deliberatelyedged out the companies who engaged inexperiment. The hope was that the advent ofthe new Welsh Assembly would provide theimpetus for change, and there is now anurgent need for the kind of funding thatpermits more cutting edge work to be honedagain in a new millennium, in the newMillennium Centre and in satellite spaces.The scope ought to be infinite.

Pierre Boulez famously called musictheatre ‘opera for the poor’, a form whichneither requires nor aspires to the sameextravagant trappings as grand opera.

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Music Theatre Wales, Punch and Judy (photograph byMarilyn Kingwill, courtesy Music Theatre Wales)

Remembering that plans for thepredecessor to the Wales Millennium Centrewere scuppered in part thanks topreconceptions about the elitist nature ofopera, Boulez’ definition again offers food forthought. Through the centuries, Wales has,without question, been impoverished in thematter of theatre and drama, and the countryhas never been a nation of dramatists. ButWales is unusual in having equally old musicaland literary traditions and, since music andwords are the very fundamentals on whichmusic theatre depends, there is a logic whichsuggests that more radical approachescombining both disciplines could producemusic theatre emblematic of a new era.Perhaps it is not too fanciful to suggest that inthe musico/dramatic Anterliwt of Twm o’rNant there is quite a useful precedent to adoptand adapt in the twenty-first century.

In her native Australia, Judith Isherwood,Chief Executive of the Wales MillenniumCentre, developed collaborations whichaimed at a cross-fertilisation of ideas, so thatlinks were made with theatre and musicorganisations which did not necessarilyperform their shows on the main stages of theSydney Opera House, but strutted their stuffin new spaces across the city. Given the basison which the Millennium Centre wasconceived – as a working arts centre whichcould make links with the whole of Wales andnot just with an elitist crachach; given thewealth of experience that still exists in Waleseven if it is presently unexploited; and giventhe kind of radical international work withwhich Wales has such strong connections –Banff Arts Centre, MTW’s European partnersand Aberystwyth’s ‘Giving Voice’ Festival arejust a few examples – the outlook could beexcellent. Is the time not ripe then for a newspirit of adventure in music theatre whichcould spell meaningful and life-enhancingexperiences for the Welsh audience?

Rian Evans is a writer and critic specialising in musicand the arts. She writes for Opera magazine amongothers, and also contributes regularly to The Guardian’sreview pages.

Scene-changing andscene-stealingWNO’s new Eugene OneginDewi Savage

The Welsh National Opera will present averitable Russian operatic cycle over the nextfew years. Highly appropriate, you may say,with the strikingly young new Russianmusical director Tugan Sokhiev at the helm.Such a repertoire has been comparativelyrare in the last two decades and will includeone utter rarity, Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa,along with a revival of the inspired RichardJones production of his theatricalmasterpiece The Queen of Spades and DavidPountney’s fine interpretation ofMussorgsky’s Boris Godunov.

A more frequent visitor to Wales andWNO’s touring circuit has beenTchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, JamesMacdonald’s new production being thethird in just over twenty years. AndreiSerban’s outstanding conception in the ’80swas replaced by a clear but problematic

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The WNO Russian Series will bringtogether seven operas by four greatRussian composers over the next sixyears. The Russian Series marks a newdirection of artistic and musicaldevelopment for the Company, whichsays that ‘in the Wales MillenniumCentre we will have the physical spaceand technical capacity ideal for theselarge-scale operas’. The series, which willinclude new productions of Mazeppa byTchaikovsky (Summer 2006) andKhovanshchina by Mussorgsky (Spring2007) was launched at the New Theatrein February with Tchaikovsky’s EugeneOnegin, Tugan Sokhiev’s first newproduction as WNO’s Music Director.

version by Howard Davies in the ’90s. Thislatest incarnation shares both the latter’sclarity and, for different reasons, itsproblems.

If Queen of Spades is the zenith of thecomposer’s operatic oeuvre, it is equally nowonder that the accessibly ageless Onegin is amore enduring popular success, encapsulatingas it does both the breathtaking, lilting beautyof his ballet music and the darker-veinedbeauty of the often anguished symphonies.

Byronically Romantic in its anti-Romanticism and its emotionally brittle andbitter conclusion, and one of the most intenselylyrical of all music dramas, Onegin was definedby Tchaikovsky himself as not an ‘opera’ but‘lyric scenes in three acts’, partly writing thelibretto from Pushkin’s verse novel himself.

Eugene Onegin depicts Tatyana’s thwartedlove for Onegin and its eventual reversal, andthe production flows elegantly and poignantly,like a river. Or it should. And that is thefundamental problem with Macdonald’sproduction. Lengthened by an alwaysextraneous second interval, longish scene-changes – two in the first act, one each in theother two – make it positively cumbersome.

Of course, this used to be the way,certainly at Covent Garden. In fact, therewere celebrated Zeffirelli productions inwhich changes of entire sets, not merelyscenes, were interminable. Eventuallyobjections to such longeurs grew until theywere outlawed. Zeffirellli, though, wasalways a film-maker ‘in waiting’ andsubsequently a film-maker, and his settingswere stunning. Now, theatrically, he is asconcise as Peter Brook. At the WNO, thischanging set hardly justified a resurrectionof such antiquated ritual, although thecostumes, designed by Tobias Hoheisel,were superbly evocative.

The depiction of Onegin as initially anicily Ibsenian character is good, although Iam not convinced that Tatyana would havefallen for quite such a cold fish. Ibsen’sBrand after all, has, as the name implies,palpable fire. In his sister Martha’s recentfilm of Pushkin’s Onegin, Ralph Fiennes,himself a consummate Brand, hasextraordinary fire.

Vladimir Moroz, hampered perhaps bythe sepulchral mien imposed upon him bythe production, sang strongly but somehowdrily and ultimately soullessly, leaving oneeager for that sexy, prematurely cold world-weary cynicism that Thomas Allen was ableto convey so well in his day. Even when heis finally desperate for Tatyana – what a giftof a scenario – he remained unmoving.

Of all the changes, an insistence on a 15-minute resetting for the final scene made life unnecessarily difficult for Moroz and Amanda Roocroft’s Tatyana.Roocroft, always a charismatic performer,convincingly portrayed a young girl’s fresh-faced and, in this work, rapid progressionfrom lovelorn rejection to making her ownunshakeable decisions, enhanced andcomplemented by Hoheisel’s beautifulcostumes. If Die Zauberfloete is above allPamina’s show, then Onegin is certainlyTatyana’s, and Roocroft was affecting,particularly in the pivotal ‘Letter Scene’.However, a ringing, glowing brightness ofvoice somewhat eluded her.

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Welsh National Opera, Eugene Onegin: AmandaRoocroft as Tatyana (photograph by Bill Cooper,courtesy Welsh National Opera)

As Olga, the very different and less morosesister, Ekaterina Semenchuk – a verysatisfying Russian import – was excellent.Marius Brenciu, however, as her doomedfiancé Lensky, already damned by a ludicrouswig and moustache, was unremarkable.

However, amidst the scene-changing,there was nevertheless some effortless scene-stealing. By far the best singing of the nightwas by Brindley Sherratt as Prince Gremin.Onegin’s cousin and friend – and, to his

chagrin, Tatyana’s new and much olderhusband – Gremin only appears briefly inthe last act, but Sherratt’s sonorous bassshook the house and soothed it and, myword, did it respond.

WNO stalwart Suzanne Murphy andmulti-talented regular Linda Ormistonacted nicely as, respectively, MadameLarina and Filipyevna, and the redoubtablechorus sang and danced well to theinventive choreography of Stuart Hopps.

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Welsh National Opera, Eugene Onegin: Chorus (photograph by Bill Cooper, courtesy Welsh National Opera)

A stronger show would have better graced aseason which sustains revivals of WNO’soldest extant production and one of itsgreatest, Hertz’s Madama Butterfly, in additionto Richard Jones’s quirkily brilliant andtouching Hansel and Gretel. Still, the orchestraplayed wonderfully and – this is the importantpoint – responsively to Tugan Sokhiev’s baton,and that bodes well for the future of Russianand, hopefully, other opera in Wales.

Dewi Savage is a writer, performer and occasional reviewerfor Opera Now, The Western Mail and Cambria.

Giving Voice, Taking FlightWorking with theInternational Voice inWales 1980 – 2004Antony Pickthall

During 2004/5 the resiliently independentCentre for Performance Research (CPR) ismarking a double anniversary: 30 years ofwork (as both Cardiff Laboratory TheatreCompany and CPR) and 10 years since itrelocated to Aberystwyth. What started outfrom a desire to train company members intheatre, dance and performance thatnobody else was bringing to the UK hasnow evolved into the CPR today, led byArtistic Director Richard Gough andExecutive Producer Judie Christie.

The work of CPR has influenced theperformance landscape not just in Wales butarguably across the world. Actors, directors,writers, singers, dancers and academics haveattended workshops, conferences andperformances in Cardiff, Aberystwyth andthroughout Wales – taking their experiencesback to Africa, Asia, Australia, the USA andthe far-flung reaches of Europe. They havevisited barns, caves, beaches, forests, fields,quarries, chapels and occasionally eventheatres in pursuit of outstandingperformance practice from around theworld. CPR has taken its audience andparticipants on an exhilarating performancejourney: from Chinese Opera to EnriqueVargas’ Labyrinth project, from JerzyGrotowski’s ‘Laboratorium’ to MeredithMonk’s Sound House. At the heart of thiswork has been the desire to seek out trainingto inspire quality, invigorating work.

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Both photographs accompanying this article are of the‘Giving Voice’ Festival 2004, (courtesy the Centre forPerformance Research)

Established in 1988, by Richard Gough andJudie Christie, the Centre for PerformanceResearch is a theatre organization based inWales and working internationally. Itproduces innovative performance work,arranges workshops, conferences, lecturesand master classes, collaborates andexchanges with theatre companies ofinternational significance, publishes anddistributes theatre books, and runs a multi-cultural performance resource centre.Following the success of CPR’s latest ‘GivingVoice’ Festival in Aberystwyth and Cardiffin April, New Welsh Review asked theorganisation’s Marketing and DevelopmentDirector, Antony Pickthall, to reflect on thehistorical development and ongoing creativeconcerns and ambitions of CPR.

A major part of this work has been thedevelopment of a deeper understanding ofthe role of the voice in performance. TheCPR’s ‘voice in performance’ projects dateback to the original formation of CPR –Cardiff Laboratory Theatre (Cardiff Lab),which was established as early as 1980 inorder to create intensive in-service trainingopportunities, initially for the companymembers, later offering places to otherperformers in Wales and the UK. As afreelance voice associate with CPR since1981, Joan Mills has organised substantialgatherings of influential voice practitioners.Initially, these included voice workshopswith: traditional singer Frankie Armstrong;jazz and improvisation singer MaggieNichols; Zygmunt Molik of Grotowski’sworld-famous theatre laboratory in Poland;and Enrique Pardo from Peru – who,influenced by the Roy Hart Theatre,specialised in the voice and the psyche.

The great Polish director JerzyGrotowski’s Wroclaw Laboratorium TheatreGroup were so impressed by Cardiff Lab’sgenuine interest and understanding ofphysically based voice investigations, that in1982 they came to teach intensive voiceworkshops in Cardiff. This was the first timethey had visited Britain for 13 years, andparticipants came from all over the UK. Inthe years that followed, voice work includedthe first visit and UK tour of a 60-strongBeijing Opera company, who led workshopsand put on performances, followed later bythe Shanghai Kunju Opera, who were alsoon a UK-wide tour with performances,workshops and lecture programmes.

As the newly formed Centre forPerformance Research, CPR facilitated thefirst visit from a remarkable Polish theatrecompany, Gardzienice Theatre Association,in 1989. Their use of dynamic physical andvocal skills in their memorable show,Avvakum, and in the more in-depth contextof a workshop, had a huge impact.Performers and directors who attended thisworkshop have subsequently been at theforefront of a theatre practice that exploresvoice and movement in new and excitingways. An off-shoot of Gardzienice, TeatrPiesn Kozla (Theatre of the Song of theGoat) toured Wales as part of the RestlessGravity Festival in October 2000 andGardzienice have recently been working inWales again – on a collaboration betweentheir ‘Ancient Orchestra’ and Wales’s ownEarthfall Dance Company.

In 1990, the first ‘Giving Voice’ Festivaltook place, bringing 18 different artists toCardiff to perform, teach and talk abouttheir work. It was an overwhelming success,and the response showed immediately thatCPR had identified an important gap in theprovision of performance training and hadtapped into a real and deep interest in voicetraining both for professionals and for thepublic. The past twenty years have seen a realupsurge of interest in voice-work of all kinds,perhaps because this most natural, personalmeans of expression and creativity has beenso neglected. Joan Mills has been hugelyinspired by the work of Kristin Linklater,whose influential books include Freeing theNatural Voice and Freeing Shakespeare’s Voice.Kristin has been a consistent teacher andcontributor since the first ‘Giving Voice’Festival, supporting it as it developed into afascinating mix of practical workshops andinformed discussion for practitioners andacademics. Aberystwyth and Cardiff havehosted the likes of Noah Pikes, Cicely Berryand Tran Qu’ang Hai (who oncedemonstrated his virtuosity in overtonesinging down the phone to CPR ExecutiveProducer, Judie Christie). Virtually everysignificant voice practitioner of the past 30years has been a contributor.

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Between 30 March and 7 April this yearthe eighth CPR ‘Giving Voice’ Festival tookplace, with a gathering of teachers,performers and participants from aroundthe world, at the University of Wales,Aberystwyth, and at the Royal WelshCollege of Music and Drama in Cardiff.Teachers included: Enrique Pardo(originally from Chile and now based inFrance); Jean-René Toussaint and Anne-Marie Blink from Rotterdam’s StemwerkFoundation; Mariana Sadowska – a formerperformer with the Gardzienice TheatreAssociation; Judith Shahn from the USA,Tomasz Rodowicz from Poland (one of thefounders of Gardzienice TheatreAssociation); and Åsa Simma fromLapland. This year the festival offered atypically eclectic mix of training, which onthis occasion explored the theme of‘Thinking Voice, Feeling Voice’.

In Aberystwyth in 1996, Joan Millsestablished a community choir inassociation with Aberystwyth Arts Centre.This led to CPR’s community participationprogramme, Local Voices, Worlds of Song –initially a year-long programme of eveningclasses, weekend workshops, choircommissions and performances funded bythe Gulbenkian Foundation. This helpedthe Heartsong Choir to develop andestablish its identity and repertoire througha series of workshops led by Joan Mills andvisiting tutors from the UK and abroad.Since 2002, CPR has also organized threeannual gatherings for Community Choirsin Wales and the Borders – bringing up to200 non-professional singers together tolearn polyphonic songs from Georgia andCorsica, American Shape Note and Gospel,and ‘singing with confidence’ skills.

In 2003, CPR was awarded funding fromthe PRS Foundation/Arts Council of WalesNew Works fund to commission one ofWales’ leading composers, Karl Jenkins. Hehas composed a new six-part song cycle,Travels With My Uncle: it will be premiered on12 December 2004, and will be sung by up to200 community singers from across Wales.

Now CPR’s publishing division, BlackMountain Press, has published a practicalworkbook for singers interested intraditional Georgian folk songs. 99Georgian Songs (£25.00) grew out of atypically close relationship between CPRand an artist, Georgian ethnomusicologistand musician Edisher Garakanidze and hisensemble Mtiebi. It took Joan Mills andCPR six years to produce the work aftervowing to publish it when Edisher wastragically killed in 1998. Hugely inspired bythe response to his first UK workshops withCPR in Cardiff, he made it his life’s work tocollect traditional Georgian folk songs. Theproduction of the book has been a closecollaboration between CPR and Edisher’sfriends and family. It has been a sometimesfrustratingly slow process across phone linesin Georgia, Wales and Australia andthrough the final years of a repressiveGeorgian government. As with so much oftheir work, CPR was inspired by an artist’svision and has made it real.

111Geraint Talfan Davies, Chair ofthe Arts Council of Wales, respondsto David Adams’s article, ‘SoWhat’s this National TheatreDebate?’ (New Welsh Review 63),in the Letters section of thisissue (page 135).

For further information about CPR see:www.thecpr.org.uk+44 (0) 1970 622133

CPR at Aberystwyth is a joint venture withthe University of Wales, Aberystwyth’sTheatre, Film and Television StudiesDepartment, which has enabled it to expandits programme of conferences, workshops,performances, summer schools, festivals andpublishing, and help the University establishan MA course on Theatre and the World.