<<  -- 10 --  Roderic Dunnett    OPIUM OF THE ELITE

Mid Wales Opera's sets, built by a local crew on a 15,000 pound budget, are designed so pieces can be added or subtracted to fit a smaller venue, like Llanelli, Cardigan or Felin Fach, and then be put back for the bigger venues like Bury St Edmunds or Aldeburgh.

'With Sports Halls,' says their Production Manager, Robert Wallbank, 'you even have to build the theatre first!' They tend to use metal-framed sets, he explains: 'In the old days you could bolt with wooden screws; nowadays, to survive thirty-plus venues on tour, it's got to be well built.

'What keeps me excited,' says Wallbank, 'is the challenge of putting on a decent product in all these different locations. That's gratifying. You've only got from 9.30am to curtain-up to set up shop; but if we did the show night after night in the same West End theatre, I'd end up jumping under a bus.'

MWO's circuit in October and November 2004 -- a very broad span -- also includes Redditch, Shrewsbury, Chester, Mansfield, Colchester, Huddersfield, The Isle of Wight (Medina Theatre, Newport, 22-23 October), Ludlow, Canterbury, Wakefield, Bracknell and Buxton.

Their Don Giovanni last year was a huge success: 'It was set in a New York Hotel', McGuire remembers, 'with Don Giovanni hauled off down a blazing lift shaft. The last performance,' she recalls with a smile, 'was just horrendous -- mainly because we were told the new theatre in Harlech (Theatr Ardudwy) was having its foyer refurbished, but they didn't let us know until the Monday before the Friday performance that it wasn't finished! Health and Safety wouldn't allow our van to get close, so we had to hire a tiny local van to ferry the sets and lights in.'

'Then one of the performers, our tenor, was taken ill, another singer had to sing from the pit, and a crew member had to walk it onstage. It was the last of 33 performances, and everyone was shattered. It was pretty funny, as it was Don Ottavio -- a male part -- but a female crew member who walked it, wearing a hat. Then someone bumped into her, the hat fell off -- and of course everyone loved it!

'Pandemonium, really -- but it's par for the course with touring opera!'.

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