Benjamin Britten - Albert Herring
Buxton Festival, 2017
Justin Doyle, Francis Matthews, Bradley Smith, Heather Shipp, Morgan Pearse, Kathryn Rudge, John Molloy, Yvonne Howard, Nicholas Merryweather, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, Lucy Schaufer, Mary Hegarty, Bonnie Callaghan, Nicholas Challier, Sophie Gallagher, Simeon John-Wake
Buxton Opera House - 19th July 2017
Who would have thought that Benjamin Britten, an outsider to the social and musical establishment, would be the composer who best captures the essential qualities of Englishness in his works? And not just in a kind of idealised fashion in the recounting of historical period drama or even just documenting the contemporary England of his times, but in a manner that captures attitudes and behaviours that are essentially and timelessly English. The social study of Peter Grimes might very well be his masterpiece in that regard, but Albert Herring captures much of the same character with the additional qualities of charm and humour.
It's the nature of the comedy and what is revealed through the brilliance of its wit and the wider detail of the characterisation that may even give weight to the argument for Albert Herring truly being Britten's masterpiece. Never having seen this Britten opera performed before (and not being English myself), I would have been sceptical of such a claim placing this work above Peter Grimes, Billy Budd or even War Requiem, but if there is a case to be made for Albert Herring as Britten's masterpiece, it's seeing it performed in Buxton surrounded by the same kind of characters that it depicts so colourfully up there on the stage. Francis Matthews's production for the 2017 Buxton Festival makes a wholly convincing case for its greatness.
Quite rightly, the principal claim for its greatness lies in the dazzling variety of the opera's musical language that never gets too clever for its own good. Britten develops and reworks musical, choral and motifs that don't just parody or emulate traditional English forms of music but tap into its baroque, folk and pastoral roots much more successfully than in Gloriana. It matches these moreover to specific English situations and character and to a lighter side of life that is loving and affectionate. You could say the same for how Justin Doyle brings those qualities out of the orchestral playing and for how Francis Matthews stages it in the marvellous Buxton production.
The other factor that stands in the favour of Albert Herring is the delightful witty libretto by Eric Crozier, based on a Maupassant story. Like Britten's score it is light and colourful, managing to be evocative of everything English without ever getting nostalgic or self-glorifying about it. How else can a line like 'Swan Vestas' be quite so hilarious? It celebrates the little person, the underdog and it deflates pomposity, finding the essence of Englishness out in its little village craftsmen and tradesmen rather than in the pretentiousness of its authority figures, although even there the work establishes a wonderful and authentic dynamic between its social classes. Even the name Albert Herring, with its regal forename matched to a rather more humble surname somehow manages to sum up everything that the work miraculously manages to achieve.
Surely then I wasn't the only person in the audience who looked on the behaviour around the May Day celebration committee table and thought of the cabinet of the current government? Theresa May, the authoritarian Lady Billings, with her delusions of competence, speaking in meaningless clichés and catch-phrases; Phillip Hammond the mayor managing the purse strings, but that official can manage to subtract 3 from 25 however, so there's a slight difference there; Michael Gove is Mr Gedge the Vicar, with his faith in educating the youth through the Bible, Shakespeare and Foxes Book of Martyrs. It's probably not fair to compare Sid to Boris Johnson, but still, quite the 'May Day' parade indeed.
Who am I kidding? I doubt anyone else would have been thinking such thoughts while enjoying how Francis Matthews directed the proceedings and the satire with a much lighter touch. Which is not to say that the Buxton audience weren't able to recognise and laugh at the gentle poking of fun at characters they would surely meet on a daily basis or at attitudes and behaviours which still persist. And to go by the current Conservative government whose actions are beyond satire really, it just goes to show how some characteristics are true and universal. And human. Which is what is great about Albert Herring and why it will endure.
The singing at Buxton really couldn't be faulted. Bradley Smith's brightly sung Albert is an innocent figure from a not so bygone age who needs to throw off that English reserve and stand up to his 'betters'. Sid and Nancy (now there's a prophetic pairing of names in respect of rebellious youth) are also wonderfully sung and characterised by Morgan Pearse and Kathryn Rudge. Heather Shipp is a fine Mrs Herring. The 'character' roles are an important part of the work and taken colourfully by Yvonne Howard as Lady Billows, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts as Mr Upfold the Mayor, Nicholas Merryweather as Mr Gedge the Vicar and John Molloy as Superintendent Budd. With impeccable direction, light-hearted comic detail and visual jokes to go with the musical delights on offer, there was much to enjoy in this fabulously entertaining production of Britten's comic masterpiece.
Links: Buxton International Festival
George Frideric Handel - Tamerlano
Buxton Festival, 2016
Laurence Cummings, Francis Matthews, Rupert Enticknap, Paul Nilon, Owen Willetts, Marie Lys, Catherine Hopper, Robert Davies
Buxton Festival - 21 July 2016
The key to making an opera like Handel's Tamerlano transfer successfully to the modern stage is to find an appropriate emotional level that will make the necessary connection. You could probably say the same about any opera really, but it's particularly important for baroque opera. What might have been appropriate nearly 300 years ago might not necessarily be the case now, so there's a difficult balance to judge between fidelity to the original intentions of the work and how it can be best viewed by a modern audience. Director Francis Matthews seems to be aware of the particularities and the peculiarities of Tamerlano and this 2016 Buxton Festival production gets the essence of the work across very well indeed.
So what is the dominant mood or emotional level that the Buxton production pitches for? Well, strangely, it plays Tamerlano as something of a drama of manners. The drama of Tamerlano isn't that different from most baroque opera plots. There's a ruler who wants to marry the lover of his closest friend or ally, not realising or caring about the trouble it is going to cause. Afraid to confront the Emperor's wisdom and authority, the other protagonists whose lives have been turned upside down then embark instead on a series of laments of woe and betrayal before those sentiments start to turn towards feelings of anger and a desire for vengeance.
With a few other complications thrown in to set everyone at cross purposes, that's Tamerlano in a nutshell. Handel however, while he has no option but to adhere largely to the conventions of these emotional plot points, is much less strident about their severity. Which strikes you as unusual, because the dramatic plot seems to be dialled up to 11 here in this particular opera with several regicidal death plots of stabbing and poison, the threat of a political prisoner being executed by beheading, a heartbreaking familial conflict between a father and a daughter that plumbs the agonies of betrayal, and several other political and marital complications thrown into the emotional bouillabaisse.
Handel however, certainly as far as it is applied here in Matthews' direction and supported in the period instrument musical arrangement of Laurence Cummings conducting the English Concert, plays all the emotional turmoil of Tamerlano as a delicate question of manners and etiquette. How should Bajazet, the defeated Turkish Sultan, conduct himself before the Tartar victor? And should Tamerlano treat his prisoner with mercy or justice? Should Andronicus defer to the decrees of the Emperor, even if it means he cannot be with the woman he loves, Asteria, the daughter of Bajazet, who the Emperor himself wants to marry and then execute her father? And where does this leave Irene, who Tamerlano was originally supposed to marry? It's a troubling conundrum and one must be seen to be behaving in the right manner at all costs.
The question of etiquette being the dominant concern here is very much within the libretto of the work itself, with frequent pronouncements and accusations of arrogance, pride and anger blinding people to the correct way of behaving. Much is directed against Tamerlano, but he also sees any challenge to his authority - particularly on the part of his reluctant bride-to-be - as improper and is convinced that the 'superba' (arrogantly proud) Asteria will surely recognise what is the right way to behave in this situation and come around. The emphasis on manners is also brought out in this production by the silent courtiers who do the king's bidding, issuing proclamations to make sure protocol is followed and documenting any infractions of them.
The elegant and gentle expression of Handel's music explores the ambiguous and complicated space between intent and behaviour wonderfully, and this is brought out well in the period instrument performance and the conducting of Laurence Cummings. There's a persistent rhythm but the use of instruments and melody suggest more complex emotional workings and plays on these rather more nuanced positions that aren't quite up to the gravity of the conventional opera seria situations. There is a risk that a modern audience might still find such concern over manners and protocol a bit silly, but the production and playing takes this into account without betraying the intent of the work or turning it into a light comedy.
The position and the performance of Tamerlano and how he is characterised is important in keeping that balance. Wonderfully, the Buxton production employs a countertenor for the role (with a second countertenor for Andronico) and Rupert Enticknap plays the part of the Emperor absolutely perfectly, certainly at least as far as the tone and intentions of this production are concerned. There's an edge of arrogance in his bearing, demanding respect for his position but also wanting to appear fair to his friends and enemies, and be loved. It's amazing how much of that can be fed into Enticknap's little trills and ornamentation - just pushing his self-importance and self-confidence too far.
Other little "dramatic" gestures and mannerisms play upon the overheated pronouncements and the artificiality of how they are presented on the stage. Paul Nilon's Bajazet, for example, really milks the situations for sympathy and anguish, yet this is exactly how the role is devised and how the arias are composed for it. Yet, there's an underlying suggestion in the music that it's the proud act of a defeated man and failed father - again those roles and manners that need to be followed - and by playing it that way (undoubtedly directed to be played that way), largely straight, letting the music tell us more than the words and the gestures do, it allows a modern audience to see beyond the conventions of the opera seria form.
Adrian Linford's set designs are curious and difficult to place in any period. It's not quite a 'Night at the Museum' idea, but it does fit with the overall tone adopted which is to suggest something of a 21st century view of an 18th century depiction of the 15th century Ottoman empire, again emphasising the artificiality of it all. Aside from the two fine countertenors, Rupert Enticknap as Tamerlano and Owen Willetts as Andronicus, Marie Lys also made a great impression as the "superba" Asteria, a strong character who knows her own mind and always has a plan. She cuts through the hesitancies and uncertainties of the male characters bemoaning their fate and is more in favour of taking direction action, moving everything along as it should.
Links: Buxton Festival
Camille Saint-Saëns - La Princesse Jaune
Charles Gounod - La Colombe
Buxton Festival, 2013
Stephen Barlow, Francis Matthews, Anne Sophie Duprels, Ryan MacPherson, Gillian Keith, Emma Carrington, Ryan MacPherson, Jonathan Best
Buxton Opera House - 5 July 2013
The choice of works for this year's Festival Double Bill feature at Buxton were perhaps not the most challenging or adventurous works (there is however another pairing of Sciarrino's Luci mie Traditici and Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King if you're looking for something rather bolder), but as well as reviving two undeservedly obscure works that one would rarely ever have the opportunity to see elsewhere, the pairing here of two opéra-comique works by Camille Sant-Saëns and Charles Gounod proved to be perfectly complementary, highly entertaining and maybe even a little thought provoking.
Considered on their own merits it has to be said that neither of the two short works are ever likely to enter standard repertory or ever be considered alongside such grand and great works by the composers of Samson et Dalila and Faust, but the intentions and the audiences for both Saint-Saëns' La Princesse Jaune and Gounod's La Colombe are very different. Composed for the Opéra-Comique in Paris, both works are musically and dramatically typical examples of the comic operetta, with no greater ambitions than to provide a bit of light entertainment. If the musical approach differs between the two composers - one interesting element that is highlighted by their being performed together like this - one thing that they have in common is that they are very much of their time.
Buxton however very cleverly linked the two works together by playing to their somewhat La Bohème character, both works taking place in neighbouring apartments of a dilapidated building in a rather shabby quarter of Paris. La Princesse Jaune (The Yellow Princess), although originally set in Holland, here takes place in the bohemian garret of two artists. One of them, Kornélis is obsessed with the image of a Japanese woman (dressed in a yellow kimono here to make the racial implications of the title less problematic) that he is compelled to endlessly paint. He is so obsessed with the painted lady that he doesn't notice that his cousin Léna - who rather scandalously seems to share the apartment with him - is in love with him. Under the influence of who knows what drug or concoction, Kornélis however starts to believe that Léna is his Princess come to life and only eventually comes to the realisation of his love for "the real thing".
La Princesse Jaune a little bit repetitive in its elaboration of this simple and absurd situation through a series of duets and solo pieces for two singers, but it's beautifully composed and structured nonetheless. It's partly a satire on the obsession with all things Oriental during the period when it was written (1872) and Sant-Saëns even introduces pastiche pentatonic scale Japanese themes into the music, but he also defines the romantic flights of fancy of Kornélis with his poetic musings on love and beauty with the rather more down-to-earth immediate concerns of Léna. One can't live on poetry even though it burns very nicely as we've seen in La Bohème, and like Rodolfo and Mimi the man and the woman have very different ideals on the subject of love. In a way however, as light and entertaining as it is, La Princess Jaune nonetheless explores questions of illusion and reality in the transformative power of art and love to enrich our rather more mundane lives.
Different ideals on the question of love and the necessity nonetheless of putting food on the table are also to the fore in Gounod's La Colombe (The Dove). This is a very different side of Gounod from the familiar grand scale compositions - even if Faust was itself also originally written for the Opéra-Comique with sections of spoken dialogue. La Colombe on the other hand is very much an operetta in its subject matter as well as in its light musical numbers. Performed in English here at Buxton, it's similarity to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan or with an Oscar Wilde comic farce are even more evident.
The question of a romantic ideal here can be symbolised within the figure of the dove (which fortuitously rhymes with love in English). Horace keeps it as a memory of his love for the Countess, and even names it Sylvia after her. He's still faithful to the memory of the love they once shared even though she mistreated him, spent all his money and then abandoned him, leaving him penniless. Horace and his servant Mazet now eke out a miserable existence in an unsavoury district of Paris, housed just below a couple of disreputable artists on the floor above, one of whom has an obsession with all things Japanese (Anne Sophie Duprels' Léna making a cameo appearance during the overture here).
Musically, La Colombe doesn't appear to offer the same riches that can be found in the Sant-Saëns work that preceded it, but here in its two-act 1866 version, it's similarly well-constructed and has a rather more entertaining variety in the series of mishaps of its plot when Sylvia turns up looking to purchase the dove. She has no romantic notions associated with the dove, but rather just wants it as another social fashion to compete with the parrot owned by her rival, the Countess Amalia. Keen to show the depths of his devotion to his former lover but unable to provide her with a suitable meal, Horace, unaware of the nature of her visit, orders Mazet and Maître Jean (Sylvia's manservant) to serve up the only fresh and edible food in the house - the dove.
On their own merit then neither work is of any great depth, but as usual they way that they are brought together is intriguing and, in many ways, they each enhance the other and bring out common elements that might not otherwise be noticed. In order to do that however, the performances have to be strong and consistent and that's one of Buxton's strong points. Every element is in perfect accord with the other, the whole thing thoughtfully considered and presented in an ingenious stage design by Lez Brotherston that allows this cross-pollination to occur. The musical interpretation under Stephen Barlow was absolutely marvellous, both works delivered with verve and character and sung magnificently by a very strong cast.
Undoubtedly however, the key to the success of bring these rather old-fashioned works to life lies with the direction of Francis Matthews. Every movement and gesture, every line of dialogue and tone of delivery in the singing was used to bring out the full richness of the comic potential of the works and even finding unexpected depths by linking common themes between them. Great works they are perhaps not, but this year's Festival Double Bill was a richly entertaining concoction and a showcase for the kind of talent that is a hallmark of the Buxton Festival.
