Coliseum; St John's, Smith Square; Royal College of Music, all London
Mess with Britten at your peril. You can guarantee the claque will be out, cat-calling, waving handbags and crying "the horror" as if civilisation had yielded to the barbarians. At least some of the above was the case when Christopher Alden and his production team for English National Opera's gripping, abrasive new A Midsummer Night's Dream took their bow on last Thursday's opening night. Boos fought with cheers in a playground-style brawl with no clear winner. I had not realised until now ? slow and non-sportif of me, I agree ? that opera was a game in which you had to take sides.
Why the uproar? Terry Gilliam got away with Nazis, the ultimate test of onstage bad taste, a week ago. But The Damnation of Faust does not attract the protective instinct sparked by Britten's reworking of Shakespeare. Hypnotic, magical and languorous, yet made with the bright precision of marquetry, the score invites an Edmund Dulac-style moonlight setting and gossamer-winged fairies.
Alden gave us fairies. They just happened to be boys, and spliff-smoking, boozing, pyrotechnically inclined delinquents at that. If you believe the heavy-handed programme essays, Britten made little distinction between the two, finding insatiable magical fantasy in all wearers of short trousers. Alden's staging is far more intelligent, disturbing and nonspecific. Theseus (Paul Whelan) is cast as a creepy, droopy sort of paedophile, an adult twin of Puck (Jamie Manton). In middle age he is haunted by memories of that raw, beautiful urchin boy, but no literal parallels are made with Britten himself.
In Charles Edwards's handsome, facsimile designs, the action is translated from whispering Athenian wood to urban British school, a standard product of the 1906 Education Act, all brickwork and high windows with "Boys" written above the entrance. Now girls are in evidence too. The place has become, it seems, a prototype, early-60s comprehensive ? buildings old, attitudes aggressive and new ? in keeping with the time of the opera's composition. It was premiered at Aldeburgh's tiny Jubilee Hall in 1960. By the time it was first recorded, for Decca in 1966, conducted by the composer, the Rolling Stones were playing in the studio next door. Alden has wound the clock back for us through a socially and sexually radical decade of which Britten, despite his apparent convent seclusion in Suffolk, was a key part.
Many will detest its ugly drabness. Hermia and Lysander canoodle behind the dustbins. Oberon and Tytania are tweedy teachers. Boys peer from windows as if in preparation for roles in Britten's ghost opera, The Turn of the Screw. The quarrel between Demetrius and Lysander (Benedict Nelson and Allan Clayton) is as bitter and violent as the text suggests. Act two ends up with a terrifying, fiery coup de theatre ? worth the price of a ticket.
The mechanicals, translated into school maintenance men, are somewhat tedious and their lewd sodomising and urinating diminish the humour, though all sing well, notably Flute (Michael Colvin). Willard White, as Bottom, however, is genuinely funny, switching from weaver to glorious shaman, half naked and wild, as Tytania's toy not-quite-boy. White is good at taking his shirt off and opera will be the poorer when those days are over. But even after 35 years, he is lithe. You want to know if he can sing too? Yes, he can sing too.
In sum, ENO's daring approach offers robust counterpoint to the sensuous, occasionally indulgent poetry of the score. The orchestra, under the incisive baton of Leo Hussain, dazzled. The boys from Trinity school, Croydon sang well, if a little too cleanly. The vocal ensemble was well matched but the hero of the night was the counter-tenor William Towers, who sang Oberon from the side of the stage while an indisposed Iestyn Davies acted the role.
Different ambiguities surround the composition of Bach's Mass in B minor, justifiably spoken of as one of the most hallowed works in the western canon. Who was it for? Why was it written? Were its fearful symmetries ? mirrorings, inversions, harmonic patterns ? encoded by the composer or are they merely musical crop circles created by our own wishful imaginations, as if only arcane explanations can account for Bach's unmatched, godlike genius.
This work launched the 2011 Lufthansa festival of baroque music, cleverly devised around a "Hanseatic to Asiatic" theme. Philippe Herreweghe conducted his Collegium Vocale Gent in an unshowy performance almost lost on some of us sitting to the rear of St John's, Smith Square. Trumpets and drums sounded muted and the anticipated joyful terror of "Et resurrexit" appeared reticent. The obbligato horn playing, however, was exceptional, as were the oboes and bassoons throughout. Perhaps the acoustic was misjudged for such intimacy. Ensembles such as the Sixteen or Polyphony can project a sturdy, full-blooded sound in here if they choose, but British and European baroque styles and tastes differ.
A new generation of Bach performers is making impressive headway at our conservatoires. The Royal Academy of Music's monthly cantata series has provoked huge interest. And at the Royal College of Music, in part to celebrate the students' first use of the Kessler collection of English-made viols ? received in 2010 ? an all-Bach concert was performed, free, to a capacity crowd.
There was much budding talent and one full-fledged star: counter-tenor Rupert Enticknap. As a soloist in the cantata Actus Tragicus, he sounded pure, instinctive and expressive. Is he an Oberon in the making? There is a vacancy. The great James Bowman, a pioneer of this voice type, first sang the Fairy King at the request of Britten himself, countless times and in 10 different productions. After more than four decades of performing, he gave his final London recital at Wigmore Hall last night. Britten loved Bowman's voice, and in his last opera, Death in Venice, created a role for its unique sound: Voice of Apollo. What could serve as a better epitaph to a brilliant career?
K. D. Aubert Sara Spraker Alexis Bledel Kim Kardashian China Chow
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