The Very Last Green Thing review – youth opera gives voice

Weston Studio, WMC, Cardiff
As the Welsh National Youth Opera’s 10 to 18-year-olds update Cary John Franklin’s opera it is clear its message remains all too necessary three decades on

Welsh National Youth Opera’s two different age-groupings – 10 to 14 and 14 to 18 – joined forces for this latest production, throwing themselves into it heart and soul. The main thrust was Cary John Franklin’s opera, The Very Last Green Thing, dating from 1992 but set in a dystopian future to give voice to what he and librettist Michael Patrick Albano had found were American youngsters’ greatest concerns at the time, namely environmental issues. Three decades on, when it’s clear that nobody anywhere has been concerned enough, its message is still all too necessary and director Rhian Hutchings ensured it made its point, even if by no means a grand musical affair.

A prologue sees 1990s school children creating a time-capsule, depositing much-loved objects, ones they’d fear to lose. When the capsule is found again in the 25th century, the pupils of Data-class 452 – taught by an android – are intrigued. Trainers, mobile phone, rugby ball and transistor radio are seized with amazement, and the most visually attractive moment comes as they discover a pot of bubble-blowing solution, whereupon a machine fills the set with tiny bubbles which fade and die. This was almost the fate of the plant found by the curious Amy who feels a strange attachment for these last vestiges of growing life.