Peter Grimes opened last night at Welsh National Opera in Cardiff. Nicky Spence was Grimes, Sally Matthews sang Ellen Orford, Sarah Connolly was Auntie and Catherine Wyn-Rogers was Mrs Sedley. The chorus, we are told, ‘sang like demons’. The conductor was music director Tomáš Hanus.
Amid the curtain calls, WNO’s co-CEOs Sarah Crabtree and Adele Thomas, came on stage and made a long, scripted speech about the companmny’s plight after cuts by Arts Council England, describiung the assault on the arts in this country as a ‘threat to democracy’.
The speech was greeted with vociferous applause. We’d like to publish the script.
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