Glorious and Tragic: ENO's Death In Venice

I could not listen to the Met’s “The Merry Widow” last night (or most nights) so to escape the brutal New England chill, I decided to watch the 2012 revival of Deborah Warner’s production of Britten’s “Death in Venice” for the English National Opera. I have loved this work since my high school days, and my appreciation of it has only grown to a point where I’m beginning to think – despite Grimes/Budd/Gloriana/War Requiem all being at the top of the heap - it may be one of Britten’s most ingenious scores.

Several weeks ago there was a discussion here about this opera being "dull" and/or "uninspired." I couldn't disagree more if I wanted to. My dear, long-missed friend and one time frequently marvelous list member, Ann Purtil credited the Met’s production as being responsible for pulling her back into the world of opera. So there’s that.


Even having only seen it on video, Warner’s is one of the most innovative, creative, seamless productions I’ve seen in some time. The integration of dance, movement, lighting and acting are wed to Britten’s most unusual score in a manner that feels completely organic. There is nothing extraneous, nothing that does not serve and move forward this beautiful tragedy to its heartbreaking conclusion.

As much as I loved the Aschenbach’s of Peter Pears and Robert Tear, John Graham-Hall doesn’t portray the tortured “hero” so much as inhabit him entirely. I felt I was witnessing the disintegration of this character so intimately it bordered on voyeurism. Onstage nearly throughout, Graham-Hall sings with the required refined elegance Britten demands here, but it is his integration of myriad facial expressions, reaching gestures of limbs combined with that voice that reflects Aschenbach discomfort with life. When he speaks of his dead wife and recently married daughter, it is shot through with an inherent sadness I’ve never before noticed – or at least paid much attention to. Graham-Hall elevates this brief moment to the point where it feels like the raison d'être for all that transpires from start-to-finish. Here is an artist at the height of his powers delivering a performance that will haunt me to the grave.

Aschenbach being onstage nearly throughout and having the lion’s share of the text, “Death in Venice” is oft-dismissed as a one-man show, which is about as far from the mark as it gets. This performance gives us Andrew Shore – who, within minutes – made mincemeat of my initial reservations. He brings to brilliant life all of the disparate characters, tying each to the other with the genius of a master storyteller. Ultimately, his is the sinister, guiding hand on the complex, confusing, road to hell.

Tim Mead makes a chillingly handsome appearance as Apollo singing in what could easily be called “heldencounter.”

Former Royal Danish Ballet dancer (and current Boston resident) Sam Zaldivar is perfectly cast as Tadzio making not only plausible, but understandable Aschenbach’s obsession. He is appealing in his naturalness and his execution of the difficult, at times wildly acrobatic choreography of Kim Brandstrup. Brandstrup’s dance and movement charge this difficult work with a fluidity that ripples throughout and he and Warner manage to magically
maneuver a large company of chorus, actors, dancers and principals through the opera’s many scenes and locales in an almost dizzying fashion.

Edward Gardner leads the ENO forces through this amazing score with a master’s hand, ever a judicious balancing act of percussive, piano, orchestra and wordless chorus who in concert create a painting for our eyes and ears. This is the first time I’ve experienced this opera where I felt it almost springing directly over centuries from Monteverdi to right now. The-house audience remain rapt and silent for close to a minute as all of us watch Tadzio elegantly pirouetting into the blinding sun as Aschenbach slumps into his final sleep.

For those unfamiliar with this opera, I can’t think of a more appealing way to remedy that situation. For fans, you owe yourselves the opportunity to experience this one. It is magnificent. It is available on DVD, or "for free" for Amazon Prime members.

I recently learned Warner’s production was slated for New York City Opera, but was ultimately nixed. That would have been something.

Britten Gloriana: Barstow's Missed Opera-tunity

The performances are nothing short of astonishing and I was moved - powerfully so. Still, in the end, I have to admit to being somewhat let down. I loved this Opera North production - the casting, the direction, everything about it. I even - to a lesser degree - enjoyed the backstage moments, costume changes, pranks, etc. But the ending, which Britten ensures to pack a huge emotional wallop (and isn't that what we most love about opera?) is diffused by having the heroine taking off her wig, makeup before her dressing table as we hear the unseen audience going wild and the stage manager calling cast names for curtain calls. It's really something of a let down.

Ultimately I fear I'll probably not return to this "film" all that much as when I want to see or hear Gloriana - I want the composer's vision. It's a pity, too, as apparently the director - Phyllida Lloyd - is responsible for both the outstanding stage production (apparently one of Opera North's most successful) AND the film adaptation.

In a DVD extra, Lloyd's remarks angered me a little. She talked about how over 9 years this production had been revived three times and grew in every way - audience appeal, stage drama, etc. and how she wanted a document of it and give something to a film viewer that a live audience could never get - hence all the backstage business and camera shots from above looking down - (dazzling really). BUT - she's not a fan of live operas filmed from the stage. She states "people don't understand what a terrible shortfall of joy there is for the viewer" of televised live opera from the stage, going on to tell us that what she's done is preferable to the "flat and static experience" of watching taped live performances of opera. WHAT THE EFFFF?

Apparently Ms. Lloyd is unfamiliar with the boom of live performance opera DVDs - growing more each year. Apparently she's not seen the hundreds of performances we all here rave on about routinely. She goes on to insult practically all other directors before her (not by name of course) but rather by stating how "surprised" she is that no other directors have addressed this "static" issue. Oh really? I'd like to hear her tell that to Hans Hulscher's face, or Brian Large, Yves-André Hubert, Horant H. Hohlfeld, or any of the other directors who have made so many operas come alive on small screens in our living rooms. Really, the audacity, woman!

She then goes on to state that what she's actually doing is letting the television viewer see both the public and private life of Elizabeth and Essex, by allowing us to go backstage with the singers to the private areas that the general public will never see. Sorry, her argument is shot to hell (in my opinion) because we're NOT seeing Essex and Elizabeth but rather Tom Randle and Jo Barstow and the rest of the cast as we watch them eating candy bars and drinking tea or bottled water in the wings, dressing rooms and tunnels.

My blood really turned to the boiling point when the conductor agrees, stating this was their vision from the beginning as they thought this through "with a lot of healthy disrespect for the opera . . . because really one of the worst things you can do for any live opera is to put it on film or television. Kills it dead. Three people will watch and they'll turn it off after half an hour. It's rather like the worthiness of reading prizewinning books right to the end . . . not many people know what happens in the last third of ANY of the great books ever written." Say what?

He defends cutting the opera to a 90+ minute film because people wouldn't want to watch the whole thing and if you want to see the whole opera and hear all of the music, then you "should go see on the stage."

Believe it or not, I actually respect that they're being so adamant in their belief of the film but find it a missed opportunity and a a pity they could not believe in their production enough to make a film of the entire work, feeling the necessity to trim and pre-digest so severely so that we common lunks could "get it."

It's a fascinating piece of film, to be sure, but I really feel the producers missed an opportunity to memorialize a landmark production of one of Britten's greatest works and one of Josephine Barstow's greatest roles.

Billy Budd: The Shirtless Option?

Members of several online opera sites are speculating whether next season's production of Billy Budd will find Nathan Gunn shirtless in the title role or not. Though the Met's production hasn't as yet featured a topless Billy - Gunn seems to appear regularly in roles that "require" him to have at least a scene or two sans a shirt. I'm guessing his Met costume will be a bit "briefer" than past interpreters of the role at Lincoln Center.

The role of Billy has - in a great many productions over the last 20 years or so - featured quite a number of half naked Budd's. Here are a few of the more famous/notable ones. Note: none of them is Mr. Gunn.

The Ultimate Outsider - Peter Grimes: '69 Film with Peter Pears

In listening to a good deal of Britten yesterday, I decided today to watch the 1969 film of Peter Grimes after a friend sent a link to a clip from the final scene. Decided isn’t quite the right word - there was no choice, really. It has been a while since I’ve watched this particular performance - and I’m at a complete loss as to why this is. As I hit play, I immediately recalled Natalie Dessay’s introduction to the opera during the Met’s HD cinecast several seasons ago, as with those wide eyes she lugubriously invited us in to experience “the sad, horrible story of Peter Grimes.” And so it began.

I have always intrigued by the physical production of this “Grimes” filmed in the converted barn at Britten’s Snape Maltings home. David Myerscough- Jones’ brilliant, realistic sets were trucked in from London and assembled onto a makeshift soundstage. The tight fitting - overly cramped stage works ; the planks, catwalks and breakwater with its jagged wooden pilings - the sea roaring and crashing on a rear projection screen - all work miracles in creating the believably stifling world of the borough.

Being one of the most prolific and successful composers of the 20th century, we (or I) often forget what a truly amazing conductor Britten was and in this 25 year old score it’s safe to say, no one knew - or ever shall know - how better to put across this amazing music better than its creator. Every nuance, every secret thing is mined here in this reading that makes the score almost a living organism, something propelled by its own volition - inexorably to a conclusion that could be imagined in no other way. From the opening notes, Britten’s invisible hand guides us over the next several hours which, fly by as if in dream time.

Peter Pears at 59 was not the same singer he was at 33/34 when he created the role, neither physically nor vocally. But, like his partner, having lived with this music inside of him for a quarter century, he brings something unique to it, and is able to infuse it with the type of wildness Vickers brought, yet also a vulnerable tenderness (not part of Vicker’s Grimes) as was recently shown to us in the performance of Anthony Dean Griffey.

Heather Harper is Ellen Orford down to her laces. Theatrically, Harper invests the role with a truly intriguing mix of young woman and old soul while vocally she soars through Ellen’s music with a limpid beauty as though it Mozart or Puccini, convincing me Britten is truly their equal in matters operatic.

Bryon Drake offers a stolid Balstrode with the right amount of gruffness and sensitivity, loyal to Peter, while aware of where this story must go.

Amidst all this bleakery, it was great fun to discover a voluptuous Elizabeth Bainbridge strutting her stuff as a most intriguing Auntie, the one outsider who knows her way in. She is simply terrific here.

Aside from the magnificence of the score, the acting here is about as good as it ever gets in opera, and this must be attributed not only to a fine, handpicked cast, but to the direction of Joan Cross - the original Ellen Orford. This level of the acting extends to every smaller role as well as every single member of the chorus - all creating a believable mob, yet who sing with a sweet earnestness in their church scene. The hunting down of Grimes is here, perhaps the most chilling I can recall and Brian Large’s camera work magnifies this to terrifying proportions. The
chemistry throughout the cast presents the best of all possible worlds from cinema and opera, offering 100 percent believability and a naturalness of movement.

The number of moments both visually and musically causing me to gasp, shrink into the back of my couch in terror, or just let the tears flow were countless. Ellen’s reappearance after the storm, holding John, as the door to the tavern bursts open; Peter’s striking Ellen (in what appears to be a punch in the face) and more.

Wonderful, too, seeing Jill Gomez, Anne Pashley and Robert Tear in supporting roles early in their careers.

The penultimate scene of Peter Grimes is as absorbing, as profoundly moving as anything that exists in the operatic canon. How Britten achieved this employing such economically musical means is nearly incomprehensible and yet works as if by magic, standing both as great music and great theatre. An a cappella mad scene, punctuated only by a offstage cries of “Grimes” and a few distant fog horns, there is for me, no more hopeless nor bleaker picture in all of opera than this. Even just shy of 60, Pears tears into this scene like a man possessed, pouring every last ounce he has into it. His cries of “Come home! Come home!” terrifying . . . his utterance “Turn the skies back and begin again,” cutting straight to the heart. It is, I believe, impossible not to have one's heart broken by this man, as this character, in this moment.

This is filmed opera at its very best. If there is anyone at all unfamiliar with this performance, I strongly urge you to remedy that situation immediately if not sooner!