Polly Garter’s Aria from Under Milk Wood: an opera : John Metcalf

Programme Note

My opera to Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood was co-commissioned and produced by an international consortium of partners from Canada and the USA with the Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea at its heart. The production was directed by Keith Turnbull and Wyn Davies was the music director. They led a superlative cast of nine singers and five instrumentalists. The opera received its premiere on April 3rd 2014 as part of the festival celebrating the centenary of Thomas’ birth.

To mirror the description in the text of the passing of time over twenty four hours, I used a series of pedal notes, which over the duration of the piece rise through the twelve chromatic steps of the scale from C to C. Polly Garter’s Aria comes towards the centre of the piece and is composed over a pedal F sharp. My response to the world of Polly Garter focuses on the warmth of the character and the lost of her great love rather than on the more tawdry aspects of her promiscuity.

To accentuate the characterisation I chose to employ, as I have done elsewhere, an instrumental ‘alter ego’ – a solo violin. This larger scale version has a broader palette of soloists with orchestra. The orchestra version was dedicated to the (then) recently retired Chairman of the Vale of Glamorgan Festival (2019), David Williams as thanks for his contribution to the Festival and the musical life of Wales.

Polly Garter was one of four roles sung in the opera by Elizabeth Donovan who also gave the world premiere of the orchestral version of the aria with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin) under conductor Ryan Bancroft as part of the 50th anniversary Vale of Glamorgan Festival on May 18th 2019.

Performance History

World Premiere (New version for soprano and orchestra)
BBC Hoddinott Hall, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
18th May 2019 as part of the 50th anniversary Vale of Glamorgan Festival

BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Elizabeth Donovan (soprano)
Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin)
Ryan Bancroft (conductor)

First Broadcast Performance
BBC Radio 3
Monday 23 September 2019 14:00
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008pcx

Reviews

Soprano Elizabeth Donovan stepped forward with violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen for the world première of Metcalf’s Polly Garter’s Aria, the centrepiece of his opera Under Milk Wood after Dylan Thomas. Metcalf’s re-visit and re-cast for larger orchestral forces, with the violin’s obbligato mode functioning as Polly’s steadying familiar, might have tempted him to gild the lily. His experience told him, on the contrary, to uphold and solidify the character’s good nature at the expense of her reputation as a woman no better than she ought to be.
Nigel Jarrett – Wales Arts Review, 20th May 2019

Two vocal items followed, both featuring not only the solo violin of Tamsin Waley-Cohen but also the voice of Elizabeth Donovan. She had created the role of Polly Garter in John Metcalf’s operatic treatment of Under Milk Wood back in April 2014, and she now returned to repeat her ‘aria’ in a new orchestration by the composer, here receiving its world première. At the time of the première, I described in my review for this site the manner in which the melody returned as a sort of refrain throughout the score and noted that it was radiantly sung. Certainly there was then no difficulty, in the dryish acoustic of the Sherman Theatre, in hearing the words. Here, in the more resonant Hoddinott Hall, and with more prominent woodwind solos, the singer had to push her voice forward in a manner that sacrificed distinctive delivery of the text. Nonetheless the result was very beautiful, a most effective transformation of an operatic score which even in its original scoring for just four players had already packed a solid emotional punch.

Paul Godfrey – Seen And Heard International, 20th May 2019

Media

‘Polly Garter’s Aria’ from Under Milk Wood: an opera sung by Elizabeth Donovan with music by John Metcalf and text by Dylan Thomas.