TEFFRADOT

A new opera set in motion by a walking audience in the mountains of Eryri (Snowdonia). Heard via headphones, it relays a modern myth set around Lyn Idwal, the lake at the bottom of a glacial valley. Through song, eight characters, Sundew, Butterwort, Ceffyl Dwr, Dragon, Prince, Rock, Pen-Bele God of Death and the Teffradot emerge from the water, ice, rock, flora and fauna voicing stories of shape-shifters, immortals from the other-world, the eternal and ephemeral beings of Cwm Idwal.

Upon the moraines, carnivorous flowers, channel prophecy from the dreams of a sleeping giant buried underground; a raven lingers on the beach, its golden eyes glow brightly. Battered by wind, forged by fire and carved by ice, the brutal syncline, cuts its iconic jagged ridge against the sky, mist suspends itself over black cliffs. Underneath a young girl, sits on a large boulder stroking the head of a pine martin lying in her lap. She is the Teffradot, scourge of the rocks of Twll Du, also known as the singing bitch, it awaits its next victim. The protagonist Prince Idwal is intent upon hunting this queen of deception down.

Traditional welsh melodies are cut-up, rearranged and transformed, echoing the scarred, shattered rock face. Instruments of a bygone era side by side with new, join eight voices to echo in the mountain, to symbolise a state of pure eternity.

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