Music Theatre Wales, founded in 1988, is a touring contemporary opera company, dedicated to performing contemporary chamber opera – works it has commissioned and acknowledged masterpieces of the recent past. It has performed across the UK including many major festivals, and toured to Germany, France, Norway, Ireland, Canada and The Netherlands, broadcast on BBC radio and television and recorded on CD. The company was twice short-listed for the Prudential Award for Opera for “creativity, excellence, innovation and accessibility”.

PMF involvement:

2008 The revival of the production of Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy at the Linbury Theatre
The Times

‘Birtwistle's chamber-ensemble score (vigorously delivered under Michael Rafferty's direction) is as discordant and aggressive as anything ever penned by a British composer. But it is also a virtuosic combination of the rude, raucous and avant-garde. And because the drama is done like a recurring ritual - a literally vicious cycle of murder, love quest and callous rejection repeated four times (with a twist at the end) - it is easy to pick out the musical threads and follow them through the piece.

And from the cock-crows of Gwion Thomas's superb Punch to the stratospheric coloratura swoops of Allison Bell's Lolita-like Polly, they aren't afraid to use their voices in the way that Birtwistle uses instruments: with no limits. Carol Rowlands makes a stunningly grotesque Judy, turned on sexually by her own impending murder. Jeremy Huw Williams's Choregos goes from controlling ringmaster to blubbering victim; and Peter Hoare and Nicholas Folwell are memorably repulsive as Lawyer and Doctor, spouting conventional morality and being butchered for their pains.’
The Independent

‘Still murderous after all these years. Harrison Birtwistle and Stephen Pruslin's Punch and Judy is 40 years old. Mr Punch and his unfortunate wife go back much further, of course, but this extraordinary work was perhaps the defining moment when the Theatre of Cruelty set its mark on opera.

At least Pruslin and Birtwistle present the possibility of redemption for Punch's actions. Birtwistle's love of myth and ritual casts his tragicomedy as a kind of Passion, where his Puppet Master or Evangelist, Choregos (the wiry, Dali-like Jeremy Huw Williams) consecrates "the sacrament of murder and sadism" on "the altar of pain". Four nooses ominously descend, one for each of Punch's victims, but his odyssey is the search for love, and each time he woos and is rejected by Pretty Polly (Allison Bell, whose squeals of delight and irritation are like Mozart's Queen of the Night on helium), Birtwistle and Pruslin offer a chorale: "Weep out your unfathomable and inexpressible sorrow."

These words are set to music (a quartet) of ineffable beauty – though, of course, it is not the beauty that stays with you on your journey home. No, you'll be hearing Gwion Thomas's orgasmic whooping for joy as he, Punch, slashes and burns and beats his way into immortality. That and the compendium of shrieks and guffaws and cartoonish exclamations from a brilliantly accomplished 15-strong instrumental ensemble under Michael Rafferty. They are as much characters in this "quest" opera as those with names.

Punch does get away with murder, and he does win Pretty Polly, but even as the company are celebrating with a dance around the maypole, we are reminding ourselves of what happened to Judy, and fully expecting that it will happen again. Mr Punch is who he is – and he was well named.’
The Evening Standard

‘Michael McCarthy's focused, unfussy staging, utilising the traditional props of fairground booth, hangman's noose and so forth, but with a subtle twist or two (designer Simon Banham, lighting Ace McCarron), throws the spotlight on the moral progress of the central character. Gwion Thomas's Punch skilfully bridges the gap between screeching threats and soul-searching meditation... As Choregos, or the Puppet Master, Jeremy Huw Williams gives an outstanding performance: confiding, quizzical, enigmatic, making the most of the richly expressive lines he is given. Allison Bell rises to the stratospheric challenges of her coloratura role as Pretty Polly, while Peter Hoare and Nicholas Folwell as the Lawyer and Doctor, beginning the opera in deckchairs as shocked observers of the seaside entertainment, complete an excellent cast.

A score such as this, which explores extremities of tessitura and dynamic spectrum, runs the risk of merely assaulting the audience's ears. The achievement of Michael Rafferty and his admirable ensemble is to confer a level of coherence on the sonic mayhem and to give shape to the recurring sequences of which the various scenes consist. The moments of hieratic stillness and lyrical warmth - as in the redemptive duet for Punch and Polly near the end - touch the heart.’
The Daily Telegraph

‘There was a full and rapt house for the first performance of Music Theatre Wales's excellent staging, expertly played by a crack ensemble conducted by Michael Rafferty and confidently sung by the well-rehearsed team.’