A legendary Welsh prince and a post-apocalyptic story about environmental renewal — it’s the guts of Madog, a one-man opera by composer Paul Frehner and librettist Angela J. Murphy. Horizon: Madog will probably be launched on the Navona Information label on January 16, 2026.
Madog is a trilingual opera, written in English, Welsh, and French. Montréal’s Ensemble Paramirabo carry out on the album alongside baritone Jeremy Huw Williams.
The album contains the complete opera together with ‘Un pont sanguin’, an extra piece for sextet by Frehner.
The Story
The story is about in a future world the place the planet has been just about destroyed by climate-driven flooding. Communications programs have collapsed throughout the globe.
Enter Madog, descendant of the legendary Welsh prince of the identical title. Madog ab Owain Gwynedd is a determine in Welsh folklore, a prince who was stated to have sailed throughout the ocean to the Americas in 1170 — three centuries earlier than Christopher Columbus’s voyage. In response to the legend, Madog (additionally referred to as Madoc) was stated to be the son of Owain Gwynedd, an actual historic determine and the Welsh King from 1137 till 1170. Madog fled Wales due to the prevailing violence of the period.
The Madog of the opera rejects dangerous expertise and promotes an earth-first philosophy.
Sooner or later world of the opera, persons are steadily starting to rebuild their societies. Madog appears to find his personal heritage as he works to unite the rising present-day cultures round shared values.
In distinction to the extra pessimistic environmental message of so many works in varied media, Madog examines the ways in which numerous communities can work collectively for create a greater future.
The Artists
Paul Frehner
Composer and conductor Paul Frehner is a local of Montréal. He’s turn into identified for a various catalogue of works that incorporate parts of rock, folks, jazz, and progressive music, together with literature, science, and the pure world. He has composed orchestral and chamber music, opera, choral works, and electroacoustic music.
Paul’s music has been broadly commissioned and carried out throughout the globe, and his accolades embody First Prize within the Prague Philharmonia’s Third Millennium Composition Competitors. He’s an Affiliate Professor at Western College, the place he teaches composition and directs the CEARP electroacoustic music studio.
Angela J. Murphy
Angela J. Murphy relies in Montréal. She graduated from each the Theatre program at Dawson Faculty, and the English and Artistic Writing program at Concordia College. Folks and human nature kind the guts of her inventive work.
She first collaborated with composer Paul Frehner as a librettist in 2003 on the opera Sirius on Earth. The work was produced in London, England, and funded by the Genesis Basis. Sirius can also be set in a future world, however with a darker and extra dystopian flavour. Humanity has been cured of its unhappiness, however the result’s a detriment to the very essence of what it means to be human.
Jeremy Huw Williams
Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams studied at St John’s Faculty, Cambridge, and on the Nationwide Opera Studio in London. He has carried out in additional than 70 operatic roles since making his debut with the Welsh Nationwide Opera in a manufacturing of Così fan tutte. Jeremy has carried out on distinguished levels throughout North and South America, in addition to in Australia, China, and India, and in Europe, together with on the Wigmore Corridor and Purcell Room, and at many main music festivals.
Together with stay efficiency, he’s a recording artist with a listing of greater than 50 business recordings, together with about 20 discs of solo songs, and he ceaselessly data for BBC Radio 3. He’s devoted to new music, and has commissioned many works.
Amongst his many accolades, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Glyndŵr College in 2009 for providers to music in Wales, the Honorary Diploma of Physician of Music from the College of Aberdeen in 2011, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire within the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours, and the 2022 John Edwards Memorial Award, a non-competitive award given in Wales for providers to the nation’s music.
Paramirabo
Ensemble Paramirabo take their title from a piece by composer Claude Vivier. The group met in 2008 on the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, and flutist Jeffrey Stonehouse has been their inventive director since then.
Recognized for his or her dedication to up to date music, and the work of Canadian composers, their revolutionary strategy appears to push the boundaries of the normal live performance expertise. They’ve toured internationally, and been invited to carry out at music festivals in Belgium, England and Mexico.
Accolades embody the OPUS twenty third version — Performer of the yr Prize, and a 2020 JUNO nomination. The ensemble has over 80 premieres and commissions to their credit score.
Paul Frehner & Angela J. Murphy: The Interview
How did this work come about?
“The singer, Jeremy Huw Williams, he contacted me and recommended perhaps we are able to work on an operatic undertaking with a solo singer,” Frehner says. Williams recommended a trilingual piece, and in addition incorporating a connection between Wales and Québec.
“Angela and I had labored collectively beforehand,” Paul continues, “Jeremy sang on that undertaking years in the past.”
When it got here to contemplating an ensemble who may deal with the music, Frehner went with a gaggle he’d been eager about for a while. “I had thought-about approaching Paramirabo for some time, and so they had been very enthusiastic.”
The outlines of the story had been additionally largely the results of Jeremy’s enter. “Once more, that was Jeremy.”
As he explains, the parameters of Madog’s historic story might or is probably not solely actual. Among the many many rumours and legends attributed to the unique Madog is that he explored North America when he arrived there, making a connection between Wales and Québec.
Frehner was intrigued by the story. “Perhaps in some way we are able to reimagine that story. The story just isn’t about him, however a descendant.”
“Or, he sees himself as a descendant,” Angela provides. The world of the opera just isn’t to date off from the place we are actually in at this time’s world, with the route that trendy society is taking.
Within the opera, Madog the descendant is motivated by the previous — the current of at this time. “Due to the selections made prior to now,” she explains, “it took on a job in his thoughts, with a purpose to perpetuate a optimistic future, he has to behave.”
It’s not that he rejects all expertise, as she notes. The opera’s Madog makes use of a radio, for instance.
“There’s a hubris factor,” she feedback. “It doesn’t matter what you do, there’s no excellent way of life, no excellent approach of being.”
A Trilingual Opera
“Jeremy’s concept was that it could be in three languages, the opera, however Angela got here up with easy methods to set the textual content,” Paul explains.
Angela’s concept was to provide you with a state of affairs that may enable for the inclusion of all three languages. Within the post-apocalyptic world of the opera, the individuals Madog encounters initially come from totally different locations. “They communicate a fluent dialect the place the three languages are interwoven.” It leads to a continuing forwards and backwards between English, French, and Welsh.
As Murphy factors out, it’s not so dissimilar to the Chiac she was uncovered to throughout her childhood through her grandmother. Chiac is a singular dialect of Acadian French that’s largely spoken in elements of New Brunswick. It blends French with English, with a particular use of grammar and rhythm, and a singular vocabulary.
“Québec French, as you recognize could be very a lot its personal dialect,” Angela notes. “It’s actually grown to be its personal factor. The Welsh have a really historic and (distinctive) language,” she provides, drawing a comparability between present efforts to show Welsh in colleges and Québec’s Invoice 101.
Language is essential to tradition. “There’s no getting away from it right here,” she says.
“Jeremy, earlier than the performances, he would at all times communicate of the significance of the Welsh language,” Paul recollects. The Welsh authorities’s efforts to show the language in colleges is an effort to protect a heritage that’s at risk of vanishing. “English is the dominant language in Wales nonetheless at this time. It’s very a lot an ongoing difficulty.”
Whereas the language of the opera consistently fluctuates, the fashion of the music doesn’t essentially comply with. “In a approach, no,” Frehner says. He says he thought-about setting the Welsh textual content with music in a sort of ambient mode, however then thought higher of the concept. “I assumed the music would simply find yourself sounding sort of bonkers,” he says.
“I attempted to seize within the passages […] an total feeling of the actual second, after which attempt to let the phrases be delivered in a pure approach, for regardless of the language was.”
He’d by no means labored with a Welsh libretto earlier than, and consulted with Williams concerning the rhythms of the strains. “Jeremy was tremendously useful,” he says. His enter included, for instance, particulars resembling avoiding excessive notes on sure syllables.
“The libretto is vastly poetic,” Murphy says. “He loves listening to himself use phrases. It really works in that sense.”
She emphasizes that the objective was to permit for the feelings to come back by way of clearly, it doesn’t matter what the language.
At occasions, the specifics of every language got here into play. “I like the best way that Québec language can sound whenever you’re indignant,” Angela says. “When he’s speaking concerning the ocean, it’s extra Welsh,” she provides, noting the language’s dreamier, meditative really feel.
“The English feels extra just like the mediator between the 2,” she says.
Music
Like a lot of Frehner’s work, the music for Madog incorporates a number of influences. “Somebody may take heed to and listen to perhaps allusions to this fashion or that fashion,” he says. “It may appear pluralistic in the best way that the libretto is pluralistic.”
The opera opens with a radio broadcast, then segues into the music. “It’s quite driving,” he says. When Madog talks concerning the land, the temper adjustments, and turns into extra reflective. “It’s fairly totally different.” As he explains, the variations aren’t essentially stylistic, however quite linked to interpretation.
“The opening melody that the ensemble performs when it first is available in, it’s heard […] all through in varied methods,” he explains. Every iteration is chromatically totally different. “It’s hopefully a little bit of a unifying component.”
“It’s like a comforting mantra for himself,” Angela says.
“It’s all through that last part that he’s singing […] ‘We’re the gods’ — it’s not likely a leitmotif, however this omnipresent melody all through,” Paul says.
Collaborators
Jeremy Huw Williams is, after all, a significant component to the opera.
“He’s a tremendously partaking performer, and a really dramatic baritone with a lyrical voice. He’s actually in a position to switch from one language to the following, to the following,” Frehner notes. “He’s an exquisite singer to work with on a undertaking like this.”
“He’s 100% invested in understanding this character,” Angela provides.
As she feedback, the preliminary presentation to Williams was a barebones sketch of the opera. “He actually created his [character],” she says. “It was created over the interval of every week.” Jeremy had memorized the work, and are available again with a working character. “It’s simply implausible to work with somebody so devoted.”
“We began rehearsals on a Monday, and the primary efficiency was on Friday,” Frehner says. He explains that Williams had not solely memorized the music, however the blocking and different particulars.
The preliminary stay performances befell in 2024, together with one every in Montréal and London, Ontario, and one other three in Wales.
“All of the stage instructions that Angela was given, it was necessary to know why,” Paul feedback. “He’s actually wanting to know the historical past of the character.”
“The textual content bounces from one factor to a different,” Angela remark, “so [it was] not essentially apparent what occurs from one second to the following.” Williams created the connections from second to second.
“He understood that the character is torn between wanting to stick with his individuals, and the decision to search out his homeland and to go on their message,” Paul explains.
“It’s virtually an interior drama,” Angela notes. At occasions, it’s not solely obvious whether or not the character is speaking to himself, or addressing another person.
Ensemble Paramirabo additionally turned an integral a part of the opera.
“Simply how nice Paramirabo was to work with,” Paul recollects. “That they had a really a lot shoot first, ask questions later strategy.”
He notes that, whereas they’re a brand new music ensemble, chamber opera just isn’t their standard territory.
“They completely embraced the undertaking,” he says.
“It’s a darkish piece, actually a whole lot of quirkiness there,” notes Angela. Whereas the general tone is severe, the opera does embody a couple of laughs. “They loved watching him,” she provides. “It offers you the sense they’re creating with us.”
“They had been very a lot collaborators,” Frehner says.
The Recording
“We recorded this piece in Wales proper on the finish of the tour,” Paul notes. At that time, the work was nicely rehearsed and perfected by all the artists.
‘Un pont sanguin’, the companion on the piece, was written for Paramirabo, and recorded in Montréal.
- Discover Horizon: Madog on Navona Information, obtainable for pre-save now, and set for launch on January 16, 2026 [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 many years, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
