BBC National Orchestra of Wales explores the unsettling story of a woman’s obsession with her surroundings, with the world premiere of a new commission by Simon Holt, the Orchestra’s Composer-in-Associaton.
The work by Holt, The Yellow Wallpaper, is a new dramatic piece for soprano and orchestra. The libretto, by David Harsen, is based on the story by the early feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gillman, where a woman is locked in a room by her husband as a rest cure for post-natal depression. After a summer spent in the room, the young woman begins to imagine that there are beings within the room’s walls.
The new work will be performed in a concert at Cardiff’s St David’s Hall on Friday 20 April, 7.30pm – and will feature one of Britain’s best loved sopranos, Lisa Milne. Lisa and the Orchestra will be joined by other six female voices, who will be placed amongst the orchestral musicians on stage. The yellow wallpaper in the title will be referred to not just in the libretto, but also by the percussion players, who will be using decorator’s lining paper and twigs as part of the atmospheric sound effects.
Simon Holt described his inspiration behind the new work: “I’ve known about Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novella since 1981… It’s certainly haunted me ever since that first reading. When the Orchestra invited me to write the last piece for my Composer-in-Association position, I felt that this was finally the time to deal with it.
“The way the story is told is utterly uncompromising and, considering when it was written, the courage of it is extraordinary…I wanted to try and make the audience feel as if they might be in the room with the protagonist and for them to have an insight into what she’s going through.”
This work, commissioned by Radio 3, is the last of three works composed by Simon Holt as part of his tenure as Composer-in-Association of the Orchestra.
Conducted by Thierry Fischer, the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor, the concert will conclude with a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No 4 – one of Mahler’s most relaxed and subtle works, which features a child’s description of Heaven in the fourth movement, sung by Lisa Milne.
Booking information
Tickets for the concert at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, on Friday 20 April, 7.30pm, are £10-£26 (discounts available) and are available from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales Audience Line on 0800 052 1812, or St David’s Hall Box Office on 02920 878444.
For more information about the Orchestra, visit our website at bbc.co.uk/now.
