PENYBERTH OPERA: Saunders Lewis gets a tenor, and every arsonist gets his own accent, as rehearsals begin

The three men who burned an RAF bombing school in 1936 will each sing in his own accent when their story reaches a Swansea stage this autumn.

Rehearsals are under way for Fflamau Penyberth, the OPRA Cymru opera marking 90 years since the Penyberth arson attack, which we told the story of in August, ahead of a Wales tour that calls at Taliesin Arts Centre on 26 November.

The fire at RAF Penrhos was set by Saunders Lewis, Lewis Valentine and DJ Williams, who handed themselves in and served nine months, and returned to a hero’s welcome.

Composer Gareth Glyn, whose music carries the opera, said: “Fflamau Penyberth commemorates a hugely significant event in Welsh history and I felt a great responsibility to get it right and I hope my score does justice to this seminal moment.”

His casting logic starts with the men’s own voices. “I’m pleased that the singers chosen to take part are suitable for the parts they portray. Saunders Lewis had a high-pitched voice so he lends himself to the tenor range while the other two are portrayed by baritones.

“Similarly the singers are approximately from the same areas of Wales as the three men so they sing in the same local accent and I think that is very important.”

At one point the three sing together unaccompanied, which Glyn believes is “a very powerful song”.

The production’s tenor is Robyn Lyn Evans, raised in Pont-Rhyd-y-Groes in Ceredigion, who started out in local Eisteddfodau and has since sung with Welsh National Opera.

Aberdare-born baritone Emyr Wyn Jones has worked with Scottish Opera and appeared alongside Sir Bryn Terfel in Bywyd Trwy Gân, the S4C celebration of the bass-baritone’s career.

The third lead, baritone Robin Gruffudd Hughes, has sung with companies including the Royal Opera, and was born in Pen Llŷn, the peninsula where the fire was set.

Fflamau Penyberth is Glyn’s fourth opera and his third for OPRA Cymru. His last, drawn from Caradog Prichard’s novel Un Nos Ola Leuad, became the film Tanau’r Lloer, which premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and was shown on Channel 4 and S4C in March.

The Anglesey-based composer, regarded as one of Wales’s foremost choral writers, turned 75 in July, marking it with a new album, Yr Oriau Oll a Welsom, on Tŷ Cerdd Records.

Two of its works set poems by his father, the journalist, poet and novelist T Glynne Davies, whose centenary also falls this year. “Over a period of close to 60 years I’ve set a great deal of my father’s poetry to music,” Glyn said, “not because he was my father, but rather because I’ve always been affected and inspired by his poems.”

The opera tells its story in three acts, opening with one of the men in a prison cell and unfolding in flashbacks.

The tour opens at Neuadd Dwyfor in Pwllheli on 19 November before the Taliesin date on 26 November, with tickets through the venue box offices and details at opra.cymru.