Nights at the Opera

Resolven Operatic  Society

Mr Glyn Davies has recently given the Society a catalogue of old posters advertising the activities of  Resolven and District  Amateur  Operatic  Society. The Society,established in 1926, was very famous in its day and would produce productions in the Autumn lasting four full nights with the tickets for the Saturday being highly prized. The production was usually light opera including Gilbert and Sullivan,Johann Strauss and Georges Bizet. Productions were performed at the Miners Welfare Hall which was built around the same time as the birth of the Operatic Society. The  Operatic Society also produced performances of religious music with an augmented chorus at Easter.

The very first production was “The Pirates  of  Penzance”,  in January 1927, performed “at the new pavilion” this was followed by “Iolanthe”, in 1928. The harsh economic conditions meant a break in proceedings and no further productions were seen until 1938. The final productions took place in the late 1990s with “The King and I”, and a very successful production of  “Wizard of Oz”. There are two very interesting articles on the Operatic Society by John Rees and Viv Hill, both stalwarts of its activivities in “Resolfen Recalled”.