Intermezzo

Alan Bennett's deceptive Habit

I probably would have gone to see The Habit of Art anyway. A new Alan Bennett play - are you kidding? But what really sealed it was the subject matter. The publicity - even Alan Bennett himself - suggests it's an exploration of the relationship between Auden and Benjamin Britten, a relationship which led directly to some of Britten's greatest music. Britten was just 29 when he set Auden's words for Hymn to St. Cecilia, their final collaboration. Although both men lived another thirty-odd years, they fell out and never even met again.

What was behind their rift, and what might have happened if they'd encountered each other later in life? An imaginary meeting in 1972 is at the centre of Bennett's play. But as the Guardian's naughtily early it's-not-a-review-it's-a-feature revealed after the first preview, The Habit of Art is really about Bennett himself. In dialogue with himself, in fact. Auden expresses Bennett's anxieties about ageing and his ambivalence towards his 'national treasure' image. Britten is Bennett's need for support and validation of his work, the still-fresh wound of his youthful feelings of inadequacy. Bennett's words and Alex Jennings's characterisation don't add up to any picture of Britten that you might immediately recognise from writings or broadcasts - nor are they intended to. As portraits go, the characters are as imaginary as the formally inventive play-within-a-play situation they're placed in.

In short, while the play has much to recommend it that I won't go into here because this is a music blog, no light is shed on Britten. There's also very little music. What there is gets played in deliberately rehearsal-style fashion on electric piano. There are reasons why it's worth seeing The Habit of Art - but music isn't one of them, so don't queue hours for tickets on that basis.

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The prickly Britten was legendarily offended (and I can't say I blame him) by this Dudley Moore skit from Beyond the Fringe, a TV show that also featured the young Alan Bennett. Nearly 50 years old!

Peter Grimes at ENO - fishy business or armless fun?

Peter Grimes - English National Opera, 18 May 2009

German Expressionist cinema seems to be having a bit of a 'moment' on the London stage. Last night I saw the National Theatre's new All's Well That Ends Well improbably backdropped by Murnau's Nosferatu. And despite ENO's misleading fishfinger-ad poster, above, David Alden's inspiration for Peter Grimes is his old friend The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

In echt Expressionist style we see the whole thing through the eyes of the protaganist, Peter Grimes. This is both the genius and the flaw of Alden's production. It isn't simply contrary to Britten's intentions. It also, inevitably, makes Peter Grimes himself a more sympathetic, understandable character. And, crucially, it removes the moral and dramatic ambiguity that underpins the work. Is Peter Grimes a serial child abuser, or just a misunderstood mistreated misfit? Britten wanted his audience to continue pondering that question even after they'd seen the whole show. But Alden eliminates any doubt. The opening trial is harsh and unfair, because Grimes of course sees it that way. And although he treats his new apprentice roughly, his death is directly due to the village mob, who scare Grimes so much that he lets go of the rope securing the boy. His 'mad' scene is subdued and introspective, his eventual end a noble sacrifice.

It's coherent, it works - on its own terms. I don't see the 'contradictions' that some of the press reviewers do. Stuart Skelton's huge ginger baby of a Peter Grimes is so perfectly wrought that his every action and perception is at one with his hulking vulnerability. But at the same time I didn't need the production to solve the puzzle for me. Motivations are rarely cut and dried in Britten. Doubt is a critical element not just here but in Billy Budd, Death in Venice, The Turn of the Screw. Applying the feelgood certainties of the Broadway musical to the subtly nuanced construction makes a less compelling drama of this simple story.

Massive though this flaw is, it's surprisingly easy to set aside. Indeed anyone who came to this production with no prior knowledge or background probably wouldn't even notice it. Alden believes utterly in his concept/perspective, and the production is immaculately crafted around it.

Skewed and sloping surfaces suggest a contorted and perverted reality, a community simultaneously falling apart and collapsing in on itself. Grimes feels scarcely more comfortable inside his vertiginously sloping hut than he does in the oppressive confines of the village. Only the wide open spaces of the beach and the sea, exquisitely evoked in dreamily-painted sky and grey northern light, offer his troubled mind any semblance of tranquillity.

Peter Grimes, isolated from the villagers, can barely tell them apart. So they are robotic drudges who can act only in perfect conformity (often strictly choreographed) with their neighbours. At the end, they turn into a baying mob of flag-waving little-Englanders, symptoms of a wider malaise.

The principal characters are grotesquely caricatured - Grimes sees them not as people but as a collection of faults, so that's how they're presented to us. Leigh Melrose's oily, spivvy Ned Keene, Matthew Best's tutu-sporting Swallow, Gerald Finley's one-armed yachtie Balstrode, Rebecca de Pont Davies's crop-haired trouser-suited Auntie and her demented twin schoolgirl Nieces (even Britten didn't bother to give them names, so why not?) are all beautifully drawn. The silent Apprentice is a huge, almost adult boy yet he cowers like a dog, a readymade receptacle for Grimes to offload his own persecutions.

Only Amanda Roocroft's warmly sympathetic Ellen Orford, the only one Grimes can trust and confide in, appears in a recognisably human light.

Stuart Skelton's definitive and often quite beautifully-delivered Grimes aside, the singing is technically patchy. But it's dramatically effective. Who cares if Amanda Roocroft screeches a few notes when she's playing a woman in the utmost turmoil? And Felicity Palmer's Mrs Sedley is a nutty old lady, so why shouldn't she sound like one? In fact every aspect of the acting is utterly convincing, from the blocking to the powerful individual conviction. These singers make some 'proper' actors look like rank amateurs.

Musically, it was a near-unqualified success. Since he joined as music director, Edward Gardner has deserved the highest praise for battling through a difficult job in often trying circumstances. No wonder he's going grey. I haven't always been equally impressed by his achievements in the pit. But this was his most complete and convincing display to date - firmly driven and punctuated by blistering bursts of power. Some of the ebb and flow of the sea was sacrificed to his implacable momentum, but the colours were rich and the detail always finely drawn. The ENO orchestra, rehearsed to near-perfection, were at their absolute best in the mini-dramas of the stormy Sea Interludes.

The 21 May performance is broadcast on Radio 3 on 11 July 2009 and not to be missed.

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Buggered Up Beggar's Opera

The Beggar's Opera - Royal Opera House Linbury Studio, 22 January 2009

After some harsh first night reviews for The Beggar's Opera, I was prepared for the worst. Some went so far as to say the ROH should have chosen a different arrangement of John Gay's 1729 words in place of Britten's. And it does seem the show's problems rest as much with the source material as with this new production by Justin Way. No surprise that it's one of Britten's least-performed works. But as the latest episode in the ROH's one-a-year slog through the entire Britten operatic opus, it had to be tackled sometime.

The question is why they stuck so reverentially to the original 1948 performing version. The issue is not the music itself. Britten's arrangements of the tunes (all that remains of the original 18th century songs) are spare and lively if not quite dripping with invention. They don't need changing in any way, and Christian Curnyn presented them ably enough from the pit.

The problems start when the music stops. There's just too much chat between songs.  Partly Gay's original, partly added in 1948 by the producer of the first performances, it dates and clutters the opera, adding little in dramatic or structural terms. The performers here didn't stand a chance, but even Ian McKellen would have had his work cut out with these lines. Savage pruning would have been perfectly justified. Or why not even a re-write? We accept the loosest of translations for foreign operas - why not do the same for an English one? That's why Brecht and Weill's more drastic reinvention of the original, Die Dreigroschenoper, works over and over again. They scrubbed the slate clean and created not just an arrangement or a German version, but a complete adaptation, one that speaks to the audiences of our day just as it did to theirs.

The production never quite clears the hurdles that the raw material imposes. With a mock-up of Covent Garden's main house seating on stage, the implication is that we the viewers are behind the velvet curtain, watching the 'audience'. It's adeptly done, but why?  Ditto the barely-signalled near-future setting, which, the fashion police will observe, is costumed more like 2004 (fake Juicy suits? pls...). It's striving for happeningness, but fundamentally it's straight alt.Opera, nothing more than a fresh coat of paint. Plenty of ideas but not enough discipline or focus.

At least the individual performers emerged with some credit - when they weren't chewing through ye olde dialogue anyway. The singers managed better with the speech than the one actor on stage, Sirena Tocco's omnipresent (why?) Beggar. Never was a name (it means 'siren touch' in Italian) less apt. Dressed for some obscure reason as a ROH usher she muttered her lines incomprehensibly and generally looked embarrassed to be there.

Tom Randle's suave Macheath was got up as that old Miami Vicer Roberto Alagna - given the original work's intention to puncture the egos of the 18th century's most prominent opera stars, I'm not certain this is entirely coincidental. Fortunately we were spared the accompanying Angelaness, though we did get a brothel full of assorted tarts in Soho's finest secks-wear.

Jeremy White as Peachum and Donald Maxwell as Lockit gave the dialogue some Chas'n'Dave gorblimey humour, and Susan Bickley made Mrs Peachum a convincing Walford matriarch - though it was odd to hear them revert to conservatory-trained RP for the singing. But it was Frances McCafferty's brief appearance as Mrs Trapes, a Beryl Cook-shaped Scot, that nearly stole the show. 

   

 

 

  

Saint Nicolas at the Barbican

Britten's Saint Nicolas - Barbican, 6 December 2008

6 December is St Nicholas Day, when the custom in Germany is to leave out a shoe for the kindly saint to fill with sweeties. The Barbican aren't as generous, but they did put on two performances of Britten's bio-cantata Saint Nicolas, an afternoon one for kids, and the evening one I attended for everyone else.

Britten wrote Saint Nicolas specifically for amateur performers, including children. Not that it's just simple enough for amateurs to tackle; it needs their ‘fresh and unrestrained quality’ as Britten put it, and would actually sound wrong if it was slicked up by professionals. 

So most of the performers came from the local amateur orchestra EC4 Music, and the singers from the local St Luke's Community and Youth Choirs. A smattering of pro support (as per Britten's directions) came from the Belcea Quartet and Guildhall students. And there was Ian Bostridge to sing the role of the saint himself.

But that wasn't all. Saint Nicolas includes two hymns to be sung by the audience. So we had a quick five minute rehearsal from the nation's favourite choirmaster, Gareth Malone. Talk about luxury casting.

It was a mark of the thought and preparation which had clearly gone into this. They even managed a staging of sorts - always difficult in the Barbican Hall, even more so when the stage is full of musicians, and probably a superhuman feat when so many small children are involved. But the action was sparing and intelligent - children waving their arms to make a sea for the sailing song for example - and it came off without a hitch.

I could have done without the the tacked-on spoken interludes - a toe-curling debate in faux-playground-speak between a costumed angel and demon. They pedantically filled in any biographical gaps thoughtlessly left by Britten, as if the whole point of the evening was to prepare for a GCSE in St Nicholas Studies. As the almighty Jimmy McGovern says, better to be confused for ten minutes than bored for five seconds.

But despite this, and despite a bad cold that shredded Ian Bostridge's voice, it was hugely entertaining and very competently performed.

Just to give us value for money, I suppose, there were a couple of Bach cantatas in the first half. For some reason, a completely different group of musicians were used, the London Handel Orchestra and Singers. These cantatas were written for advent, so technically they were appropriate, but the style and mood was so far removed from St Nicolas that they seemed part of a different show.

Carolyn Sampson and Roderick Williams did well with their solo parts. Ian Bostridge had been scheduled to join them, but excusing himself with his cold, Jon Bungard and Edmund Hastings were plucked from the choir to cover. I'm not sure which was which. One has a good basic chorister voice and sang accurately, the other a quite beautiful and well-projected lyric tenor marred by suspect intonation. Both did well under the circumstances (I've heard worse from professional soloists) but hearing Ian Bostridge later, even flawed by illness, did underline the difference between a chorister and soloist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are we Donne yet?

Ian Bostridge / Mitsuko Uchida / Elizabeth Kenny / Corin Redgrave - St Luke's, 18 October 2008

A programme devoted solely to the words of John Donne makes perfect sense in theory, but the connection is more intellectual than musical, and the way this one was structured made for a curiously fragmented evening. The first half included love poems set for voice and lute by Donne's contemporaries; the second the searing Britten cycle The Holy Sonnets of John Donne.

Scattered between these were readings of Donne's poetry and religious prose. Or were the songs interleaved between the readings? Corin Redgrave's meticulously-wrapped syllables may have edged the recitations into the lead.

The lute songs were interesting curiosities I suppose, but even Bostridge and Kenny's craftsmanship couldn't conceal their slightness.

Britten's Holy Sonnets of John Donne were another matter. Britten's grim response to the horrors of the Second World War, composed after his visit to liberated German concentration camps, articulate his rage and despair.

They're not an easy listen, and Bostridge slipped naturally into their tortured intensity, corkscrewing his frame in a physical mirror of the angular lines. Rather too many words were addressed to the floor, but even so, there was a shocking directness to their fury. Mitsuko Uchida, rigid and disciplined on the piano stool, produced a bold, impassioned accompaniment. It's hard to conceive how a performance of this quality could be bettered.

 

What's on this winter at the Royal Opera House

Barely a week into the new season at Covent Garden, and already we're being asked to whip out our Amexes again, this time for November to March productions. Booking opens this week for those who've paid for the privilege, and next month for the common herd.

Rolando Villazón fights through miles of curtain fabric to reprise his Covent Garden debut role in Les Contes d'Hoffmann. Antonio Pappano conducts the elaborate John Schlesinger production, inching ever closer to its sell-by date. Ekaterina Lekhina (Olympia) is a new name to me, but Gidon Saks, Kristine Jepson and Christine Rice promise sturdy support (photo: Clive Barda).

Rolando also submits to a live interview on 10 November. Space is limited, so early booking advised.

The other star vehicle of the season is a new Tim Albery production of Der fliegende Holländer with (cancelitis permitting) Bryn Terfel in the title role. Anja Kampe makes an overdue ROH debut as Senta. Tickets will be restricted to two per customer for this one.

Britten's The Beggar's Opera pops up in the Linbury Studio. The new production by Justin Way (not by conductor Richard Hickox as the website currently claims - there are limits to his talents) is likely to be popular, so again, early booking advised. The excellent and underused Tom Randle is Macheath.

Also to the Linbury comes the long-overdue London debut of George Benjamin's highly-praised ("the most important new opera of the past 25 years") mini-opera Into the Little Hill , coupled with Harrison Birtwistle's Down by the Greenwood Side. The cast includes Susan Bickley and Claire Booth.

The brilliant Willy Decker production of Korngold's Die tote Stadt that I caught in Vienna finally makes its way to London.  Unfortunately Klaus Florian Vogt and Angela Denoke aren't coming with it, but Stephen Gould and Nadja Michael should be a more than passable substitute. And there's the bonus of Gerald Finley in the smaller role of Frank.

David McVicar's t1ts'n'todgers Rigoletto returns with indecent haste. Francesco Meli, Leo Nucci, Ekaterina Siurina and Kurt Rydl are amongst the few cast members who get to keep their clothes on.

Elektra isn't illuminated by Charles Edwards's jumbled production, but with Mark Elder in the pit and a cast that includes Susan Bullock, Anne Schwanewilms, Jane Henschel and Johan Reuter it should at least push some musical buttons.

Even I can't get excited about yet another Turandot revival, but include it for the sake of completeness.

On the ballet side, I have to recommend the triple bill The Seven Deadly Sins / Carmen / DGV: Danse à grande vitesse, especially for the first of these and its wonderful music. Chanteuse Martha Wainwright returns to sing Weill's evocative music, and Zenaida Yanowsky is her dancing doppelganger (photo: John Ross).

Britten and Pears - "we like a lot of carrots"

Another one from the home of Sir Colin Davis's kebab recipe, Adrian Ball's 1971 Food of Love: The Favourite Feasts of World's Music-Makers.

The recipes contributed by the long list of musicians vary so much in style and detail that I can only think they were included pretty much as written, with minimal editing.

Claudio Arrau, at the time possibly the greatest living pianist, offers an extravagantly concocted Lobster Bisque. 

At the other end of the scale, a joint contribution from Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears combines the unforgotten proscriptions of rationing with the Englishman's enduring fondness for nursery food. In other words, how English food earned its bad name.

Here is their starter, Miss Hudson's Soup:

"Take the bone of a good English sirloin (or any bones or chicken carcase) a great deal of onions, celery and carrots, varying in emphasis according to preference of taste. (We like a lot of carrots.) Cover with water in a deep pot, and simmer for three hours. Cool, remove fat, strain and season."

They follow with Soles Red House (fried breaded soles) and Dark Treacle Jelly, and accompany with "the Wine Society's Chablis".

Like many of the book's contributors, when asked to suggest music for the meal, they responded "none of course".

All the better to savour those carrots.

Daniel Harding's matching Brahms and trousers

Midori/LSO/Harding  - Barbican, 3 and 6 April 2008

The LSO have gone Midori-mad this spring. These two concerts, with a violin concerto apiece, formed part of a whole series of events built around Midori (concert programme here).

There's no doubt that Midori is a fantastic ambassador for the violin, for classical music, for the arts generally. As a performer, I'm less convinced. Midori's technical control is impeccable, but in both the Tchaikovsky concerto of the first night and the Britten of the second, it smothered any spontaneity. The jarring brutality superimposed on the finale of the Tchaikovsky was no substitute. Elsewhere, Midori's self-effacing charm ultimately frustrated - it's not enough just to play louder than the rest of the guys. I longed for a bit of her character to peep through.

The first concert's closer, Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, was a test the LSO passed with flying colours. All soloists, especially the horn and flute, were superb. Daniel Harding sustained the narrative drive and vitality without compromising the rich tapestry of orchestral texture.  He's a storyteller, for me consistently impressive in opera if more varied elsewhere, and this is the sort of thing that shows him at his best.

The second concert ended with a curiously deflated reading of Brahms'  2nd Symphony. Recalling Harding's idiosyncratic and rather wonderful Brahms 4 here with the LSO a couple of years ago, I'd hoped for the same sort of verve and clarity. It wasn't laden with the sort of dull gravitas that so often makes Brahms a bore, but it hardly sparkled either, meandering shapelessly along. Rather like Harding's mismatched suit, with its green-black jacket and red-black trousers (yes, black comes in different shades) it passed muster at a glance, but the parts didn't quite add up to a satisfying whole.

Slipped unexpectedly in front of the first concert was a new five minute piece by Edward Rushton called Everything goes so Fast. Why the LSO don't pre-announce their new music 'extras' or include them in the concert programme is beyond me. It confuses the audience, denies young composers valuable publicity, and, worst, makes it look as if the LSO is ashamed to be connected with the work it performs. Big mistake. Anyway, the idea in this particular piece, a process of textural decay, seemed too slender to sustain a full five minutes' exploration, so subtle that it was almost imperceptible, and undermined rather than underlined by the rhythmic monotony. Perhaps it looked better on paper. To the ear it sounded more like a work in progress than the finished article.

Spring springs for Daniel Harding

LSO/Harding - Barbican, 30 March 2008

The logic of a programme which pairs Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No 2 with Britten's Spring Symphony eludes me.

And hasn't Gergiev given us plenty of Prokofiev with the LSO recently anyway? I don't understand the implications of Daniel Harding sticking his flag in that territory too. But whatevs.

The soloist in the Prokofiev was Viktoria Mullova, supercool in zebra print dress over black leggings and flat ankle boots. Her performance was far from routine, and never less than accomplished, but somehow it failed to catch fire. The same could be said of the orchestra's response, despite its balance and refinement. Is it really that insubstantial a work, or did it just sound that way? Perhaps Harding just wanted to avoid vulgarity, but its sweet-centred lyricism came across as chocolate boxy.

Britten's Spring Symphony was far more satisfying, not to mentioned well timed. With the clocks going forward in the morning, and (finally) some coat-ditching weather, it really did feel like the first day of spring.

The Spring Symphony is unusual in demanding a full orchestra, then giving it remarkably little to do for most of the time. Vocal music dominates, and the various English poems are often lightly orchestrated or not at all.

The London Symphony Chorus sparkled in the many a cappella choral sections, as did the score-free and note-perfect Tiffin Boys' Choir. The soloists, Susan Gritton, Sarah Connolly and Mark Padmore, radiated the joys of spring - or perhaps just a long Sunday lie-in and a good lunch. Freshness and charm pervaded throughout. Harding deftly wove together the awkward open textures, skilfully building the tension before releasing the work's final explosion. Spring at last.

All hands on deck - Billy Budd at the Barbican

Billy Budd - LSO/Harding - Barbican, 9 December 2007

The huge crew of this Billy Budd just about squeezed on to the Barbican stage with the help of a bit of sophisticated musical chairs. With every elbow tightly choreographed, there wasn't room to even think about any staging. Just a hint of costuming - the officers sported full frack and the seamen all-black - though the significance of Gidon Saks's lurex tee and winklepickers is anybody's guess.

The sounds of the sea were gloriously evoked by Daniel Harding and the LSO. Here Britten brings symphonic-scale resources to a minutely-embroidered chamber orchestration. Crashing waves, rolling shanties, the thunder of battle exploded into life, sometimes ear-splittingly so. fff-ing loud does seem to be Harding's default volume, but here it seemed utterly appropriate, wrong-but-right, and never drowned the details. Nor the singers -- a few odd moments aside, Harding cleared a generous path for them.

This was the first (or the second if you count an identical performance two nights earlier) of a series of Barbican concerts fronted by Ian Bostridge, and it was also his first outing as Captain Vere. Vere's agonising choice between personal morality and public duty was laid out painfully and vividly, but his public face was less clearly sketched. Indeed, Bostridge seemed completely disinterested in presenting any kind of external characterisation, as if dissection was an adequate substitute for portraiture. But, dramatic considerations aside, his singing was flawless, lyrical, at times heartstoppingly beautiful.

Maybe I've been spoiled by recollections of Simon Keenlyside tackling Billy Budd, but I found Nathan Gunn was a little colourless in the title role, with more charm than real charisma. He improved as the night went on though, and managed in his dawn song (aided by a haunting piccolo solo) to be truly touching and not simply sentimental.

Gidon Saks, the burly, scary Claggart was imposing of voice and demeanour, convincing from head to toe. Brooding malevolence was tempered with flashes of the vulnerability that drives his persecution of Billy. It was a commanding performance, hinting that what lay inside Claggart was too monstrous to contemplate. Absolute perfection.

And the many smaller roles were more than adequately filled. Matthew Best as Dansker, Andrew Kennedy as Novice, Andrew Tortise as Squeak and Alasdair Elliot as Red Whiskers were all particularly impressive, but really, there were no disappointments amongst the soloists at all.

The London Symphony Chorus sailed on somewhat rougher seas, making a splendid job of many of their moments, especially the big shanties, but falling apart rather here and there. I had the impression a couple more rehearsals might have helped.

The whole thing was recorded for future release by EMI -- if they can edit out the first act coughfest it should be a remarkable recording.

A video with some background, including rehearsal footage and commentary from Ian Bostridge:

Rattle and Harding go head to head in Friday night battle

"Anyone with open ears is going to be stunned by the overwhelming beauty of the piece"

says Simon Rattle of Schumann's super-rare oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri, which he brings to the Royal Festival Hall this Friday, December 7.

Though he hedges his bets with
"to our very puritanical, middle-European ears, people think this is simply too beautiful, the dissonances are too extraordinary. People have a problem with ecstatic music".

He's gathered a fantastic cast - Bernarda Fink, Sally Matthews, Kate Royal, Mark Padmore and David Wilson Johnson - so he may just prove himself wrong there.

Same night, different place, the Barbican offers stiff competition with the gay jinks of Britten's Billy Budd.

But there will be no rigging, no jigging and definitely no frigging on Captain Daniel Harding's ship - it's a concert version. Which means (I am presuming) we will have the rare privilege of seeing Nathan Gunn (in the title role) with his shirt on. Ian Bostridge and Gidon Saks (a late replacement for the sick John Relyea) fill the other principal roles, but the casting is chiefly interesting for the quality it brings to the smaller parts - Matthew Rose, Andrew Kennedy, Darren Jeffery, Andrew Staples and Roderick Williams to name just a few.

Fortunately an agonising decision can be averted by opting for the repeat of Billy Budd on Sunday 9 December.

For anyone interested in finding out more about the Schumann, Misha Donat leads a talk on Thursday 6 December at 6pm in the Sunley Pavilion of the Royal Festival Hall. Though here there's no way round the fixture clash with the first night of the Royal Opera House's Parsifal, so I'll be giving it a miss.

ENO end the season with a good Screw

The Turn of the Screw - ENO, 1 December 2007

At last something decent from ENO. They score on all fronts with this coherent, gripping and musically potent interpretation of Britten's opera. The unsettling drama is played out in a spare, monochromatic, Victorian setting which immediately roots it in the time of Henry James's original tale. The grubby glass panels creaking across the stage and dead leaves fluttering underfoot suggest neglect and decay. Intimacy and an unknown beyond are simultaneously evoked by bathing the corners of the huge Coliseum stage in darkest shadow.

Britten was repeatedly attracted to ambiguity, to texts which lack a clear resolution. Director David McVicar preserves this aspect to some extent. He doesn't do absolutely all the audience's thinking -- crucially, he never clarifies whether the whole drama is taking place in the Governess's head, though heavy hints are dropped. But he decides for us if and when the ghostly Quint and Jessel are visible to the other characters, and why -- at one point contradicting both text and music when he seats Miss Jessel at the Governess's desk while Britten has her slowly approaching it. And McVicar is much more blatantly assured than Britten could ever have dared to be about the possible paedophilic element underlying the work -- he even has the child Miles plant a suggestive kiss on the Governess's lips as he sings "I am bad aren't I" at the end of the first act.

The corruption of the children is boldly underlined by the clever use of one of those grotesquely human Victorian wax dolls -- a toy disturbingly abused by the children as they first dress it in a pig mask, then bury it furiously beneath the leaves. And the restless inching-around of the same furniture from scene to scene in same basic set neatly underscores Britten's musical structure of theme and variations.

Musically, everything worked well, starting with Garry Walker's sensitive and detailed orchestral contribution. Rebecca Evans was a fluttery and neurotic Governess, exquisitely lyrical, confounded by the alarmingly adult Miles of fourteen year old Jacob Moriarty. Both Jacob and Nazan Fikret (Flora) were shockingly good, easily a match for the rest of the cast in vocal and dramatic ability. And casting these parts with slightly older children than normal allows them to display a knowingness entirely in keeping with McVicar's ideas.

Timothy Robinson played Quint with subdued but ever present menace. His singing was resolute, powerful, and in places surprisingly Pears-like. The sensual harshness of Cheryl Barker's Miss Jessel made her more accomplice than victim, and her voice took on a firm, almost strident edge. Ann Murray brought together vocal steel and feather lightness in her chilly and assured Mrs Grose.

ENO may struggle in some areas, but like their last couple of Britten productions, Death in Venice and Billy Budd, this could be counted pretty much a total success. And it's not audience poison either - I would guess the Coliseum was at least 90% full on my visit. Something for the schedulers to think about? 

   

Christine Brewer's Wigmore opener kicks Proms into touch

Christine Brewer/Roger Vignoles - Wigmore Hall, 8 September 2007

The opening night of the Wigmore Hall season is cunningly scheduled to provide a welcome alternative to the last night of the Proms. The honour this season went to soprano Christine Brewer, a Wigmore Hall favourite.

In a concert recorded for later release in the Wigmore Live series, she married a familiar first half - Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder and Wolf's 4 Mignon Lieder - with some less well-known works in the second - Britten's Cabaret songs and John Carter's Cantata.

Coming on in a glamorous cerulean satin dress topped with a floral print kimono and incongruously battered black Queen Mother shoes, she delivered a predictably immaculate performance.

Her powerful voice is even across its whole range, her diction is clear but never mannered, her dynamics perfectly controlled, her tone flexible and intelligently deployed. And she makes it all seem so easy, so natural, even her breathing seems to be by some imperceptible osmosis.

In the Wagner I sensed her attention was more focused on line than on individual words, and her natural warmth substituted for a more specific engagement. Dramatic intensity was clearly not to form a part of tonight's performance. But the sublime Goethe poetry of the Wolf songs brought more pointed colouring to the text. Roger Vignoles, particularly in the tricky Wolf, proved an able and sensitive partner on the piano, the perfect foil.

Incidentally, this night was also the concert debut of the new Wigmore Hall piano, a Steinway selected with the aid (puzzlingly) of András Schiff, undoubtedly expert, but a pianist so attached to Bosendorfer he may never use the new acquisition. It seems to have a brighter, brasher tone than its predecessor, but that could simply be my imagination.

For her second half, emphasising the switch to a very different repertoire, Brewer dropped the gown and went for an art teacher look - black top and pants, complemented with a colourful braid-trimmed kimono.

The Britten/Auden Cabaret songs, as the title hints, are far from characteristic Britten, with their hints of Porter and Weill. The first one in the set of four, Calypso, was my only moment of doubt in the evening. Brewer, wavering between two irreconcilable styles, swung from singing the high notes to belting the lower lying passages. But it was largely redeemed by her wicked humour and a couple of piercing taxi-whistles she slipped in.

In the other songs of this set, her American accent and sense of humour created a warmth and ease that often eludes classically-trained singers in this sort of repertoire.

The Cantata she ended with is a classical setting of four spirituals - Peter go ring dem bells, Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, Let us break bread together, and Ride on King Jesus - by the little-known African-American composer John Carter. Brewer again sang these with a radiant born-to-it ease and great sensitivity, though I am not sure Carter's rather fussy, laboured arrangements do the exquisite simplicity of these great songs any favours.

A reception made even more enthusiastic by the free wine offered to all in the interval drew three encores, Hall Johnson's arrangement of I've heard of a city called heaven, Strauss's Ich liebe dich, and last, Mira, from Bob Merrill's musical Carnival! With its uncomplicated down-home warmth, it was not hard to see why it's Brewer's favourite song.

Coming up this autumn - Opera in London

Plenty going on of course at the Royal Opera House this autumn, and here's what's happening elsewhere in London.

English National Opera kick off their season at the end of September with a new Carmen. They follow with a revival of Nicholas Hytner's charming Magic Flute, Kate Royal and Lucy Crowe in a new production of Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea directed by Chen Shi-Zheng, a Zandra Rhodes-designed Aida from Houston Grand Opera and a David McVicar Turn of the Screw.

Sadler's Wells once again play host to a few one-offs and touring productions. Sarah Tynan features in a pair of one-act operas by Elisabeth Maconchy on 13 to 17 November. She's back on 26 November for the London premiere of a new James McMillan opera for WNO, The Sacrifice, inspired by ancient Welsh folktales. Glyndebourne on tour visit Sadler's Wells in December with Albert Herring, Macbeth (recently prommed too) and L'Elisir d'Amore.

English Touring Opera hit Hackney Empire on 12 October with Handel's Teseo followed by Country Matters, an English-language version of Haydn's L'Infidelta Delusa on 13 October. They're back on 25 October with Bridgetower, a new jazz opera by Julian Joseph. ETO may not have the star names or the big budgets, but they still manage to conjure up some high quality productions at very reasonable prices, so these will definitely be on my list.

Some musical muppetry for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, where Purcell's Dido and Aeneas "is expanded and reinvigorated by Director Tim Carroll, who weaves Marlowe's play of the same events into the opera, while the action is illuminated by a cast of magical marionettes". Two performances, on 13 and 14 October (note ETO fixture clash).

And the OAE are back for a rare concert performance of Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri in the Royal Festival Hall on 7 December. "Not an opera" according to Schumann, who titled it a 'poem' and described it as "not for the chapel, but rather for cheerful folk." Cheerful folk joining the OAE include Simon Rattle and a solid cast of Bernarda Fink, Sally Matthews, Kate Royal and Mark Padmore.

Again the OAE have a schedule overlap, this time with the Barbican's Billy Budd on 7 and 9 December, featuring Nathan Gunn as Billy and Ian Bostridge. In sharp contrast to the Royal Festival Hall's increasingly greedy ticket prices, this is a great bargain, with the top price just £30 and loads of balcony seats at £6 and £12.

The Barbican also hosts Les Arts Florissants on 24 October with Landi's Il Sant'Alessio, featuring Philippe Jaroussky in the title role.

Back at the Royal Festival Hall, the LPO have secured the services of the radiant Patrizia Ciofi for a concert performance of Bellini's rarely-heard La Straniera on 3 November .

And the LPO present another concert performance on 21 November, this time the UK premiere of Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane. Tickets are already getting thin for this. For the Korngold-ignorant (raises hand) there's a free talk beforehand by Jessica Duchen.