Smyth - The Boatswain's Mate (Buxton, 2024)

Ethel Smyth - The Boatswain's Mate (Buxton, 2024)

Buxton International Festival, 2024

Rebecca Warren, Nick Bond, Elizabeth Findon, Joshua Baxter, Theo Perry, Richard Woodall, Rebecca Anderson

Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton - 19th July 2024

It’s worth saying a few words about Ethel Smyth, since she is a rare and unusual composer and not just because she is a woman - there are few enough of those achieving any prominence even today, never mind back in the early 20th century - although her gender is certainly significant and plays into her work. It may even be seen as a factor in a light comedy opera like The Boatswain’s Mate.

Ethel Smyth is English of course, but musically educated in Europe in Leipzig, where she was familiar with, studied alongside and was on speaking terms with many notable composers of the day. Aside from her scandalous affairs, mostly with women, probably the most significant thing about Smyth was her dedication to women's rights and the suffragette movement, which even led to her serving time in prison. She composed the anthem for the movement, 'March of the Women', and the music for that even appears within the overture to The Boatswain’s Mate. If it has any significance there however, it's only to the extent that the opera features a strong woman at the centre, one rumoured to be based on Emeline Pankhurst.

Directed by Nick Bond, the Buxton International Festival production notionally sets this in the 1980s, but it could be set in the original period of the composition (1913-14) or as an 18th century Richard Brinsley Sheridan comedy of manners for all the difference it makes. It has that timeless essential English character which even if you brought it up to date with mobile phones and social media (set in the 80s may be the most modern you can get without having to consider such technology), it wouldn't age or date the material in the slightest. The whole farce takes place within the most traditional of places that have scarcely dated over the ages; an English pub. It could even be an episode of EastEnders only for the fact that it's not full of miserable people.

Well, there is one miserable person. Harry Benn has been continually making what he believes are honourable advances on the widowed landlady of The Beehive, Mrs Waters, and he can't understand how she could possibly turn down a genuine catch like himself, a former services man, a retired boatswain. He enlists the services of a passing visitor at the pub, another former serviceman Ned Travers, to help him win over Mrs Waters. He arranges for Ned to break into the Beehive at night and stage a fake burglary so that he can come to an heroic rescue. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned and, catching on to the scheme, Mrs Waters gets her own back by pretending that she has shot the unknown intruder dead.

Based on a story by W.W. Jacobs, The Boatswain's Mate doesn't have the most complex of plots and the characters aren't particularly deep, but it's a very entertaining and amusing piece nonetheless. It's as quintessentially English as Gilbert and Sullivan or Britten’s Albert Herring and just as delightful. Whether you can apply the same judgement to Ethel Smyth's music is rather more difficult to judge from the Buxton International Festival performance in the Pavilion Arts Centre. The venue only really permits a reduced version of the score and it's not one authorised by Smyth herself; a piano trio, with violin and cello, led from the piano purposefully by musical director Rebecca Warren.

There is nothing that jumps out about the arrangements other than their suitability for the comedy drama. It starts out with some scene setting, some lager louts singing (another thing that never changes regardless of whatever period you set this in), some spoken dialogue observations by the main characters to inform the audience of their predicament, each of them given an aria to express that more lyrically. The score develops as the work progresses, dropping the spoken dialogue as the rolling drama takes over. It's light and very easy to just let the flow carry you along, none of the scenes, arias or colourful secondary characters overstay their welcome in a two-part one-act opera.

The singing from the three principals is excellent. Elizabeth Findon as Mrs Waters, Joshua Baxter as Harry Benn and Theo Perry as Ned Travers​ bring great character to their roles, each with voices that can carry much more forcefully than the reduced musical score and the smaller sized Pavilion Arts Centre theatre could reasonably accommodate. With a couple of good character roles from Richard Woodall as the Policeman and Rebecca Anderson as the barmaid Mary Ann, not to mention the boisterous singing of the chorus of drunks, all performed in an attractive and functional set, there was much to enjoy in this entertaining production.

There is however nothing here that you could reasonably characterise as 'feminist' by today's standards or even by the standards of the kind of roles male composers of the same period and even earlier were writing (Violetta Valery, Tosca). It is what it is however, a light comic opera, and you can't reasonably expect any great revelations here either musically or in the libretto other than observations along the lines of 'Men, they're all alike'. Other than a strong woman at the centre, I'm not sure you can even gain any real insight into Ethel Smyth, her musical character and what she is about from this work and this production. Perhaps a look at the other recently revived Smyth opera The Wreckers might help give a more rounded view. As rare works alongside the main stage opera at Buxton however, The Boatswain's Mate and Haydn's La Canterina provided a pleasant diversion that balanced out the rather heavier fare of Verdi and Handel in the festival's main programme.

External links: Buxton International Festival

Verdi - Ernani (Buxton, 2024)

Giuseppe Verdi - Ernani

Buxton International Festival, 2024

Adrian Kelly, Jamie Manton, Roman Arndt, André Heyboer, Alastair Miles, Nadine Benjamin, Jane Burnell, Emyr Lloyd Jones, Theo Perry

Buxton Opera House - 17th July 2024

"Please be aware: This production involves death, blood, themes of physical and mental abuse, torture and suggestion of gun violence"

If you didn't know which opera you were going to see, the trigger-warning signs placed around the Buxton Opera House would at least give you a reliable hint that it could only be an early Verdi opera. In fact it could be any early Verdi opera. In this case it is indeed one of those rarely performed works, Ernani, with Act II just before the interval resounding to cries of "Sangue e vendetta!" ("blood and vengeance!"). I wonder how they managed without trigger-warnings in Verdi’s time when this was first performed in 1844. Perhaps that's why there was so much oppression and war being waged by authoritarian rulers and dictators back then, whereas now ...oh, hold on…

Sangue e vendetta indeed, there is not a lot of subtlety in early Verdi, but as was noted recently in the early Verdi compilation opera Rivoluzione e Nostalgia at La Monnaie in Brussels, there is quite a lot of rousing music and singing and a lot of full-blooded drama in these works. Engaging plots not so much, in fact with three powerful men struggling for the hand of one woman, Ernani is not unlike the situation that La Monnaie developed for their early Verdi mixtape, in as much as it's fairly standard plot fare. Attila, I seem to recall, has much the same situation. It's tempting to compare this one with Don Carlos, which itself isn't perfect, but it shows up the vast difference between early and later Verdi. One need only compare how Don Carlo (later to become Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor) here reflects on power in his aria at the tomb of Charlemagne with a similar tomb scene in Don Carlos (over the tomb indeed of Charles V) and the difference in emotional torment and soul searching is apparent.

Not that it matters greatly as far as Ernani is concerned. Plot and character isn't everything. Well, it is perhaps for most other works of opera and drama, but Verdi is a special case. In some respects the composer is tied to tradition and to the taste for historical melodrama of the day, to characters making wild romantic gestures and binding themselves unforced into grand promises that only serve to make the plot even more dramatic. There is only one thing that can make that even more dramatically powerful (powerful doesn't necessarily mean credible) and that’s Verdi's music played at full tilt.

And he really goes for it in Ernani, as does the Opera North orchestra under conductor Adrian Kelly at the 2024 Buxton International Festival. The music is not as heavy-handed as you might think, but never passes up an opportunity to throw in a huge chorus with a punchy flourish at the end. The main feature that Verdi also relies on is the need for singers of an exceptionally high standard for the four of the demanding central roles. You get that right and you have something powerful on your hands, but weaknesses in any of those roles and the whole thing falls apart. There is no question that the exceptional cast assembled here were as good as you could hope for this opera a fighting chance of success, but the options for the director Jamie Manton were limited and despite the strengths elsewhere in the music and the production, he wasn't able to find a way to make it work successfully as a drama.

Considering what he had to work with as a plot, it seems like a reasonable idea to focus instead on character and the interaction between the principal figures of the drama. It's an option I suppose, but it turns out not to be a particularly fruitful avenue to explore. The plot and the motivations of the characters are not complicated as much as a bit daft, or daft to non-existent, certainly in the first two acts. Somehow all three pretenders for the hand of Elvira all contrive to be in the same place as the unfortunate lady is being prepared for marriage, and they have a big row about it. That's about the height of the first half of the work. 

Acts III and IV involves some contrived twists around a secret society of conspirators,  the secret identity of the bandit Ernani being in reality Don Juan of Aragon, a king in disguise and an unusual vow where Ernani promises to kill himself on the sound of a bugle. You would hope that he doesn't come within earshot of just some random bugler. If it wasn't for the fact that they are notable medieval historical figures all squabbling for the hand of the Duke's niece (including the Duke himself), it would be a banal romantic drama. Which, since it's not being played historically in this production, I'm afraid that's how it comes across. It's undoubtedly hard, but with Verdi's score surely not impossible to make these figures something a little less one-dimensional.

The stage production design relied on dramatic lighting which was highly effective for the charged scenes, the all-purpose triangular recessed set serving well for bedroom, court and crypt. Not related to any period however, it felt rather generic and it didn't place the drama into any kind of meaningful context that would make it feel relatable or even credible. That's a tall order I must admit, and based on a previous viewing of this opera in a more traditional setting it may indeed be an impossible ask, but it didn't get a lot of help in direction and character that lacked the conviction to match the overheated drama.

The singing and dramatic performances however were not lacking in any way. Let's start with the chorus as they play a major role in ramping up the tension throughout. They were in fine voice here, providing those big moments to lift the work up above the banal individual romantic and personal dramas. All too often in these Verdi works it's the female soprano in an extremely demanding role that is often the weak link, but that certainly wasn't the case here. Nadine Benjamin was simply outstanding as Elvira with a big voice and fiery delivery. Roman Arndt was terrific as Ernani, presenting a strong pairing with Benjamin's Elvira. The the other two pretenders for her hand also have to be made of stern stuff, as Don Carlo is a king and Don Ruy Gomez de Silva is a duke, both needing to be formidable challengers to Ernani. André Heyboer and Alastair Miles ensured that was the case.

Musically, this was a thrilling account of Ernani, certainly worthwhile to demonstrate the often underrated qualities of Verdi's early work, particularly when you have singing and musical direction of this calibre. Unfortunately, Francesco Maria's Piave's libretto for this old-fashioned romantic melodrama does not hold up well, and despite his best efforts of the director Jamie Manton, there is little depth of human character to be found in these stock historical caricatures.

External links: Buxton International Festival