Voice and Aria / Llais ag Aria

Creative Workshop / Gweithdy Creadigol #1

Allen Raine: the Opera?

Allen Raine Opera Creators, Festri Capel Blaenannerch, Ebrill 2023. Llun gan Paul Evans.

A workshop to explore the concept of voice and aria. In opera an aria is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompaniment, normally part of a larger work. The term was originally used to refer to any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. In opera arias are intimately associated with particular roles being their expression of character and emotion. In this workshop participants were asked to bring a song that had particular significance for them or that related to the area or to the fiction of Allen Raine. The workshop took the form of a singing ‘seiat’ borrowing from the specific context of Raine’s novel Queen of the Rushes which depicts the febrile atmosphere of a prayer meeting during the 1904 methodist revival where public declarations or confessions of faith were encouraged and celebrated.

Gweithdy i archwilio cysyniad llais ac aria.  Mewn opera mae aria yn ddarn hunangynhwysol ar gyfer un llais, gyda neu heb gyfeiliant offerynnol neu gerddorfaol, sydd fel arfer yn rhan o waith mwy.  Defnyddiwyd y term yn wreiddiol i gyfeirio at unrhyw alaw fynegiannol, fel arfer, ond nid bob amser, yn cael ei pherfformio gan gantores.  Mewn opera mae cysylltiad agos rhwng ariâu a rolau penodol fel mynegiant o gymeriad ac emosiwn.  Yn y gweithdy hwn gofynnwyd i gyfranogwyr ddod â chân oedd ag arwyddocâd arbennig iddyn nhw neu a oedd yn ymwneud â'r ardal neu i ffuglen Allen Raine.  Roedd y gweithdy ar ffurf benthyg ‘seiat’ canu o gyd-destun penodol nofel Raine, Queen of the Rushes, sy’n darlunio awyrgylch twymgalon cyfarfod gweddi yn ystod diwygiad Methodistaidd 1904 lle anogwyd a dathlwyd datganiadau cyhoeddus neu gyffesau ffydd.

Material shared as follows / Deunydd a rhannwyd isod:

Someone to watch over me a song by George Gershwin / Mae gen i ddafad gorniog cân gwerin

Where the sea meets the sky a poem by Susy Broome

Ie, Dyma Ein Fro – ar don Home on the range

Dolwen a poem by Viva Seaton Montgomery

The Strand a poem by Jackie Biggs 

First of the tide a song by Erland Cooper

Teg Wawriodd (Y Ceidwad a’r Buddugoliaethwr) Carol Plygain gan Y Parch. Robert Roberts

The Moon Song / Welcome waits home from Don’t cut the Weazlewort by Dai Gorwel and Robin Turner

Extract from If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie & For the love of an orchestra by Noah and the Whale

Ar lan y môr - cân gwerin serch traddodiadol 

The Sky above the Roof by Vaughan Williams

Rhan o brosiect ‘Allen Raine: the Opera?’ a chyllidwyd gan Gyngor Celfyddydau Cymru / Part of the project ‘Allen Raine: the Opera?’ funded by the Arts Council of Wales.