THINGS TO COME - BENVENUTO CELLINI

Benvenuto Cellini ENO production

English National Opera are keen to be inclusive, with musical theatre and a café promised for the future. Mike Leigh and a children's opera too.

We've already had Damon Albarn [back in 2012], and now, next month, we've got another Terry Gilliam to look forward to. Best remembered for his work on Monty Python, and for directing the visually stunning Brazil, Gilliam will be directing Berlioz's first opera, Benvenuto Cellini, with Ed Gardner in the pit. They first worked together on the same composer's Damnation of Faust – not really an opera, some might say – critically acclaimed in 2011.

We're promised stunning visual and musical set pieces such as the Mardi Gras carnival, the opera is based on the autobiography of celebrated 16th-century goldsmith and maverick sculptor Benvenuto Cellini. The ENO cast includes rising tenor Michael Spyres in the title role, soprano Corinne  Winters   as Cellini's lover, Teresa, and ENO favourite Willard White – whom I last saw as Britten's Bottom - as Pope Clement VII.

DR DEE

DR DEE

ENO at the Coliseum

07.07.12

"Well that was bizarre …" as we made our way out onto St Martin's Lane. Couldn't argue.

This "English Opera" from Albarn and Norris, first seen in Manchester last year, has just ended its modest, not well-attended, run at the Coliseum.

As a piece of music theatre, I felt  it succeeded better with the spectacle and the stagecraft than it did with the score. Albarn himself plays a kind of troubadour narrator, and his band – period instruments very much in evidence – is on a stage platform lift. And in the pit, the orchestra with Stephen Higgins. The music is generally easy on the ear, without being memorable or particular apposite. Sometimes, we get a lively repetitive rhythm going – Nothing Is Unlawful – which could almost be Philip Glass. And there is some fine singing – though everyone seems to be amplified – notably from Steven Page's Walsingham and Christopher Robson as the charlatan scryer Kelley. But much of the text is inaudible, and without surtitles, the subtleties of the story largely passed me by. And I'm afraid that, for me, Albarn's voice tends to drag the mystical down to the mundane.

But the spectacle is often memorable – animated projections of geometry and astrology, not unlike Prospero's Books, the masque of the Virgin Queen, the column of sand pouring onto Paul Hilton's dark, sinister Dee at the end of Act One, the ravens who fly down onto the stage at the beginning and the end, the Horrible Histories procession prologue, and especially the books – the young Dee discovers his thirst for knowledge early, and the pages move around ceaselessly, for scene changes and more projection, and leaves flutter down to carpet the stage. All beautifully done. But very bizarre.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Benjamin Britten's opera at the ENO

21.05.11

A lonely man returns to his old school, deserted but for the ghosts, meets his younger self, bitterly remembering being supplanted as teacher's pet by a younger boy.

Of course, it's Britten's Dream.

Christopher Alden's haunting production sometimes sits uneasily on the score, more so on the libretto. We need to read it as a palimpsest, perhaps, or like Hermia, see it “with parted eye”, taking in the two stories at once.

Innocence corrupted is a recurring theme in Britten; here it's as if Death In Venice and The Turn of the Screw have leached into this pastoral. It's the Dream meets the History Boys, with hints of “If...” for good measure.

However, when you're actually experiencing this potent re-working, the school is a strangely compelling image, mesmerising us into accepting this idiosyncratic reading.

The set, based on a real school yard, dominates, and the unnatural lighting supports the oneiric atmosphere.

Theseus, for this is the returning stranger, was Paul Whelan, awkward, haunted, looking not unlike Jennings as Britten in Habit of Art. Puck, his younger self, was a moving Jamie Manton, often close to tears, and bitter in his resentment right to the closing speech. Dominic Williams was the Changeling Boy, given much to do here, conducting the music, taking over some of Puck's tasks.

The outstanding performance of this production, though, was Iestyn Davies as jealous Oberon, the charismatic, creepy teacher. Beautifully sung, with real character and a strong presence wherever on the complex set he was placed. Both he and his music teacher Tytania [the wonderful Anna Christy] were very young – could almost have been mistaken for students. Also youthful, naturally, were the lovers, here imagined as passionate Sixth Formers – Demetrius a muddied oaf in the rugger team. Their trysts and quarrels were hard to take in this setting, though, with no wood in which to wander. But musically very impressive, especially Allan Clayton's Lysander.

The Rude Mechanicals, the only colour in this, grim, grey boyhood world, were, I think, the janitorial staff, with the “slow of study” Snug a PE teacher. Even seasoned performers like Simon Butteriss [Starveling, robbed of the plum drag role of Thisby] and Willard White [Bottom, with no ass-head of his own] struggled to find any fun in this world, shorn as it was of jollity, the magic largely replaced by misery. Where the lovers meet behind the bins, the “weed I showed thee once” is the herb of choice for sixties students, and the flowery bed is a cold, grim corner of the schoolyard.

But the effect of this “fruitless vision” was dramatic, and did often suit the score, given a superb reading by the orchestra under Leo Hussain. The schoolboys, sombre spectres filing slowly across, almost always behind the huge windows, were used effectively – the ending of Act Two was movingly powerful. The conjugation of Amo, Amas, Amat was tellingly replaced on the blackboard by Tytania's warning: Out of this wood do not desire to go ...

Opinions so far have been divided - “hateful fantasies” or “jewels from the deep”. I wonder, would this approach work for the Shakespeare play ? Would it make sense to anyone who knew nothing of the composer ? Would it do anything for a child new to the story ? And if not, does it matter ?

THE TURN OF THE SCREW

ENO at the Coliseum

30.10.09

This acclaimed McVicar production of 2007, revived for just six performances, boasts three of the original singers, and a new conductor, the legendary Charles Mackerras, who worked with Britten on the original production, sharing the conducting with the composer in 1954 when the opera arrived in London after the Venice première.

The capacity audience was an eclectic mix of ages and backgrounds – many coming to the piece for the first time, perhaps encouraged by the London Evening Standard's incredible tenors for tenners offer.

They saw a wonderfully designed production, all sliding screens, mirrors and autumn leaves. And set firmly in the nineteenth century – no Glyndebourne postwar austerity here.

This is a chamber opera, and all the players are crucial. Ann Murray as Mrs Grose the housekeeper was the doyenne of the company, with Michael Colvin as a creepy, ghoulish Quint and Charlie Manton as his knowing, tough little Miles. Very strong too were Rebecca Evans as a sensitive governess, Cheryl Barker as Miss Jessel, and Nazan Fikret as a rather mature Flora. Both she and Charlie sang their parts with impressive poise and musicality.

The six servants, smoothly setting the scene, sometimes confused the eye, but reminded us that these children, these ghosts, are not alone in the great house of Bly.

This piece also appears on the ES site.

Richard Morrison's piece in The Times.