Community Projects

14 07 26

The Trial of Dhegdheer

What happens when folklore, AI videos and public panic decide who’s guilty?

A Black woman from Cardiff Docks is put on trial for “stealing and eating local children”. Convinced she’s there for using the wrong recycling bags, she watches in disbelief as the Somali folktale of Dhegdheer and fake AI videos are used as evidence against her.

With less than an hour for the jury to decide, can her defence lawyer, Ali Star, stop another miscarriage of justice?

Created with Somali, Yemeni and Welsh community participants from Grangetown and Butetown alongside two professional singers, The Trial of Dhegdheer is a bold new opera exploring justice, truth and who gets believed. Featuring local performers and a Buraanbur singer.

Written by Ali Goolyad, directed by Mathilde López, with music by Ani Glass, Eadyth and Robert Fokkens.

Set Design and Production Manager Gerald Tyler.

Costume Design Dotty Squibb.

Cast

Mrs Farhiya—Gweneth Ann Rand

Prosecutor—Thomas Coltman

Defence Lawyer—Ali Goolyad

Judge—Steve Fisher

Community Participants as The Jury, Translators, Witnesses, Experts, Mothers, Children

“What struck me most throughout the performance was the seamless blending of cultures, traditions and perspectives. Somali folklore sits alongside contemporary Cardiff life. Questions about justice and technology intersect with community experiences and personal histories. The result is storytelling that feels fresh, urgent and unlike anything else currently being produced”.
— The Edit Wales

Gallery

Bonus Content

Partners

Fio is a forward-thinking theatre company based in Cardiff, interested in art, artists and ideas. They work with global majority artists to wrestle and reinvent the theatrical cannon or/and create new works that challenge, provoke, and inspire.

Fio aim to shape and shake culture in Wales beyond representation by providing pathways and opportunities for global majority artists to develop, create and experience bold and imaginative theatre that engages with communities and technology.

01 08 25

Our Music, Our Story

Dylan Jenkins Community Projects, Live Productions

The voices of the past meet the creative voices of the future in an evening of memory, music and film In Our Music, Our Story Music Theatre Wales presented a collection of new works which echo the past and hail the future, including:

New short works by young composers from Wales aged 14–18 were workshopped and developed at the Parc and Dare and performed by Sinfonia Cymru.
The screen premiere of a new Film Noir Digital Detective Opera, created by young people aged 16–25, was filmed in the corridors and backstage at the Parc and Dare.
Two new works were also created by Welsh composer Luke Lewis, each springing from local voices
- Quiet Thoughts / Myfyrdodau Tawel – drawing on the voices of the present from Harriet Fleuriot’s recently created film Interior Windows, featuring interviews with local women.
- The Echoes Return Slow – responding to powerful voices of the past from the 1971 film Women of the Rhondda, mixed with interviews with local miners recorded in the Workingmen’s Institute (now the Parc and Dare) by Alan Lomax in 1953, during his world tour documenting folk music and traditions. Originally commissioned by London Sinfonietta for their Writing the Future programme.

Luke Lewis’s works were performed by Sinfonia Cymru, conducted by Iwan Teifion Davies, incorporating film, tape, and a newly commissioned poem by Owen Sheers, created in collaboration with and read by Kyle Stead.

It was an evening of reflections past and present, and a celebration of creativity to come.

Compere: Samuel Bees.

Our Music, Our Story took place at the Parc and Dare Theatre, Treorchy on Thursday 11 September at 7.30pm.

Before the performance, Music Theatre Wales also presented a discussion event, The Artist and the Archive, at Treorchy Library.

Made possible with funding from:

Colwinston Charitable Trust, The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, Gwendoline and Margaret Davies Charity, Samuel Gardner Memorial Trust, Hodge Foundation, The Radcliffe Trust, New College, Oxford, Garfield Weston Foundation, a Chyngor Celfyddydau Cymru.

20 02 25

School Storytelling

Dylan Jenkins Community Projects, Cymraeg, Live Productions

Primary School Music and Storytelling Project

Music Theatre Wales has been working in collaboration with Sinfonia Cymru on this unique project since 2025, combining storytelling, live music and design to create an engaging and creative experience for young participants and audiences.

Starting as a project that combined storytelling with music, Sinfonia Cymru and Music Theatre Wales’s Schools Storytelling Project has now grown to include a moment of opera, introducing a character who through singing and action, brings a moment of the story to life. MTW commissions an aria for each project from a Welsh composer, with text by the storyteller Tamar Williams, offering the perfect introduction to the vitality and power of opera – to the children and to the artists!

The project also offers a richly creative opportunity to Year 4 – 6 pupils as they join workshops well ahead of the performance, to create the designs, have an input into the development of the story itself and create the songs they sing as part of the performance. Closer to the performance, MTW’s singer works with the children to support their singing and actions, building their confidence and enriching their experience. This also introduces them to the opera singer, giving them even greater access to the aria.

Below is a taste of the pieces we’ve contributed to previously:

2026:

In 2026, A Song to Change the World drew inspiration from the life of Ethel Smyth and her opera The Wreckers, telling a powerful story of courage, conscience, and the music within us all. When Ethel is imprisoned and can no longer hear her music, she recalls a tale of two children, a stormy sea, and a lighthouse that saved lives, discovering through song that even the smallest voices can create change. Led by storyteller Tamar Eluned Williams and featuring musicians from Sinfonia Cymru alongside MTW collaborator Johnny Herford, the piece included a newly commissioned aria by Claire Victoria Roberts and was developed with creative input from pupils across schools in Mid Wales, touring to school and community locations across the region.

2025:
In 2025, Tŷ Unnos told the story of a mysterious house that appears overnight on a remote hill, offering travellers the best night of their lives — at a cost. When a travelling band becomes trapped inside, they must perform to win their freedom, with the audience deciding who stays and who escapes. Led by storyteller Tamar Eluned Williams and featuring musicians from Sinfonia Cymru alongside MTW collaborator Johnny Herford, the piece was developed with creative input from pupils across schools in Mid Wales and toured a range of school and community locations in March 2025.

: David Edmunds Photography

: David Edmunds Photography

: David Edmunds Photography

: David Edmunds Photography

21 07 24

Rhondda Cynon Taf

ctrlaltd Community Projects

About

Dates

Partners

Rhondda Cynon Taf

From September 2024 to September 2025, MTW worked across Rhondda Cynon Taf to explore opera as storytelling in music — and as an expressive form for anyone and everyone.

Our year-long programme consisted of three strands:

Future Directions RCT

Future Directions brought together neurotypical and neurodivergent, learning disabled and autistic young adults aged 16–25. Participants collaborated to explore storytelling in music and co-create a brand-new digital opera.

The creative process included two intensive residencies and a series of workshops across RCT, led by MTW’s team of artists and facilitators. The resulting digital opera premiered as an MTW production online and was also showcased in a live performance at the Parc and Dare.

Learn more about the Future Directions programme here.

New Notes: RCT young music-creators programme

New Notes was a collaboration between MTW and Sinfonia Cymru supporting young composers and music-creators aged 14–18 from across RCT.

Participants developed original pieces of music which were workshopped, recorded, and performed live by musicians from Sinfonia Cymru — offering a unique opportunity to learn directly from professional artists and see their work come to life.

Full details about the New Notes scheme can be found here.

The Echoes Return Slow

A new music and film piece by Welsh composer Luke Lewis, The Echoes Return Slow draws on recorded interviews with miners in Treorchy from the 1950s, and extracts from one of the earliest feminist films, The Women of the Rhondda (1960s).

Performed by Sinfonia Cymru and conducted by Iwan Teifion Davies, with video by Simon Clode and sound design by Luke Lewis, the work invited audiences to reflect on the voices of the past — and what they reveal about life in the valley today.

Culmination Event — 11 September 2025

All three strands came together at a final public performance at the Parc and Dare, showcasing:

The new pieces by young composers from across RCT
The RCT Future Directions company’s digital opera on the big screen
A full performance of The Echoes Return Slow

The event sparked discussion, pride, and inspiration — demonstrating how opera can tell powerful stories about who we are in Wales today.

Dates

Autumn 24

Future Directions taster workshops around RCT
3 October 24

New Notes introduction session at Gartholwg Lifelong Learning Centre, Church Village, with Sinfonia Cymru and Luke Lewis
24 to 26 February 25

First Future Directions creative residency at Parc and Dare, Treorchy
25 April 25

Future Directions touch-base day, Parc and Dare, Treorchy
8 May 2025

New Notes final workshop, with Sinfonia Cymru and Luke Lewis, at Parc and Dare, Treorchy
27 to 29 May 25

Second Future Directions creative residency at Parc and Dare, Treorchy
11 September 25

Culmination event at Parc and Dare, Treorchy. Presentation of the Future Directions digital opera and the 6 New Notes young composer’s pieces alongside The Echoes Return Slow by Luke Lewis

Partners

Future Directions is a partnership programme with Hijinx

New Notes is a partnership programme with Sinfonia Cymru

MTW’s work in RCT is supported by the Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council

Funders

20 07 24

Cardiff

ctrlaltd Community Projects, Current

Cardiff

We are proud to be working in collaboration with FIO, Hijinx and Arts Active Trust on a creative residency with the communities of Butetown and Grangetown, based at Grange Pavilion and Loudoun Culture and Media Centre (housed by Cardiff Community Housing Association).

Throughout the Residency, currently planned to run to Autumn 2027, we will be exploring the creative and expressive potential of opera as storytelling in music for people across the community, embracing community co-creation with young and old, and sharing newly created productions by artists who are from or whose identity and experience connects with these communities.

We began our work in January 2024 inviting Pwnc Llosg (previously The Reading Room) to read and respond to Nadifa Mohamed’s award-winning book “The Fortune Men” leading to a wider discussion about social justice and if/how creative projects might engage with resonant and relevant experiences and issues within the community. Since then, we have shown our Street Art Operas – Rahmat-Mercy-Trugaredd and Out of Time at Grange Pavilion and Loudoun Culture and Media Centre, and performed The Jollof House Party Opera at Grange Pavilion.

We are planning the following projects:

Community Opera (February – June 2026) in partnership with FIO

Future Directions project for neurodiverse young people starting September 2026. A partnership project with Hijinx

Young music creator project – Dates TBC
Young People’s Digital Opera Workshops – February 2027
Street Art Opera – two new operatic works designed for projection onto outdoor walls, experienced via silent disco headphones – March 2027

The residency will also link into other projects that MTW is planning during the same period:

The UK’s first Digital Opera Festival – March 2027

The Jollof House Party Opera: another chance to see this live event combining a short hip-hop inspired opera with a communal sharing of jollof rice for all the audience – 2027

A newly commissioned opera exploring themes of migration, integration and identity by Jazz/Afrobeat composer Renell Shaw – Autumn 2027

In August 2025, Abena-Mintaah Mensah joined us as Community Producer to support the community’s engagement and participation. If you want to find out about how you might be able to get involved please contact her here.

Partners

Future Directions is a partnership programme with Hijinx

MTW’s work in Butetown is in collaboration with The Royal Ballet & Opera

MTW’s work in Butetown is in collaboration with Arts Active

Community Projects