As the culmination of an inspirational week of music-making and rehearsals involving professionals, students and amateur musicians, join MWO’s OpenStages company for two fully staged public performances of John Blow’s masterpiece Venus and Adonis at St Andrew’s Church, Presteigne.
MWO is a professional touring opera company, staging two main productions across Wales each year as well as engagement projects throughout the communities of Wales and the Borders.
Our Easter OpenStages production of Venus & Adonis will be led by MWO’s Music Director Jonathan Lyness and Artistic Director Richard Studer.
Venus & Adonis is in every sense the precursor to his pupil Purcell’s masterwork Dido and Aeneas. Composed in 1683 and scored for strings and recorders it has a cast of cupids, shepherds, huntsmen and courtiers. The opera tells the story of Venus, the goddess of Love and of her seduction of Adonis. Pastoral, erotic, comic, and tragic Blow’s Venus and Adonis is a discourse on the nature of love and loss.
Duration 60 minutes
Only a few months ago we thought Mid Wales Opera was finished. Now, thanks to a funding lifeline from Powys County Council, we are within touching distance of having a sustainable plan to keep on producing live and local opera across Wales for at least three years.