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Two outstanding youth productions
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The pupils of Data-class 452 and their android teacher in Cary John Franklin's The Very Last Green Thing
[Kirsten Mcternan/WNO] 
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Welsh Youth Opera
Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay
IF OPERA is to thrive and bring in new audiences, then having a youth wing of singers and putting on productions aimed at young people is essential. Welsh National Opera claims it is committed to diversity and ensuring its work is accessible to a wide audience.
Its latest production of Solomon’s Ring and The Very Last Green Thing by the WNO Youth Opera manages to be both entertaining and a great introduction to opera for a younger audience. The youth opera has two cohorts aged 10-14 and 14-18 years of age and both groups combine to bring us 60 minutes of top-class singing and fine acting performances.
Solomon’s Ring is a very short piece that started life as a way of providing more stage time for some of the members of the youth opera who were not as involved with the longer The Very Last Green Thing and helped create the piece themselves.
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