“Critics Circle Award” winning company Independent Ballet Wales present a new and breathtaking version of the most famous Welsh folk tale of them all, the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach, the fairy bride lured from her underwater home to become a farmer’s wife on the Brecon Beacons.

Independent Ballet Wales’ take their inspiration from Hilda Vaughen’s adaptation of this heartbreaking tale, “Iron and Gold”, fleshing out the bones of the Welsh myth and bringing to vivid life this tale of love and loss.

Featuring stunning costumes, breathtaking choreography and heartbreaking passion.

Artistic Director and Creative Wales Award winner Darius James creates a world of myth and magic with some of the best creative artists and dancers around.

by Richard Llewellyn

Music: Thomas Hewitt Jones

Choreography: Darius James

Set and Costume Design: Daniel Anderson

For the Royal Welsh College of music & Drama

Design Supervisor: Steve Denton

Costume Makers: Hazel Jewkes and Angharad Spencer

Head of Staging: Will Goad

How Green Was My Valley is set in Wales in the reign of Queen Victoria. It tells the story of the Morgans, a poor but respectable mining family of the South Wales valleys.

The Morgans are miners and the story follows the family trying to survive the highs and lows of working in a coalmine at that time, including the discontent that sowed the seeds that were to become the union movement.

Ivor, the eldest son marries a young girl from the neighboring valley called Bronwen.

Angharad Morgan falls in love with the new preacher, Mr Gruffydd but he rejects her because he feels he is too old and poor and cannot offer her a future.

Angharad instead marries a wealthy coal-owner whom she does not love, and the marriage is an unhappy one.

Ianto Morgan, the firebrand son, marries introverted Marged who, left alone for long days on end while Ianto fights for the union, loses her sanity.

Angharad, returning home alone meets Mr Gruffydd in friendship but gossip at their relationship forces the preacher to leave the valley forever.

“How green was my valley then, and the valley of them that have gone”

“Critics Circle Award” winning company Independent Ballet Wales present a breathtaking version of one of the most famous ballets of all time.

Featuring the original stunning score by Adolphe Adam, atmospheric costumes and sets, and the remarkable dancers of the company. 

The peasant girl Giselle is driven to kill herself when she discovers that her youthful lover ‘Loys’ is in reality Count Albrecht, and not free to marry her. She rises from the dead to prey on the man who has betrayed her. But as Albrecht, repenting, visits her moonlit grave, Giselle protects him from the deathly touch of her phantom sisters until the dawn sees him safe once more.

This passionate and dramatic tale is based on the reworking of Giselle by Marius Petipa with choreographic additions by Artistic Director and Creative Wales Award winner Darius James.   

Original Choreography. Expressive Costumes. Stunning Sets