The Lighthouse, English Touring Opera, ETO, Linbury Studio, Covent Garden, October 2012

Just after Christmas in the year 1900 a steamer went to the Flannan Islands Lighthouse bringing a keeper to relieve one of the three keepers already there. The Flannan Isles are a lonely spot beyond the Outer Hebrides, and when the steamer arrived the three keepers had vanished into thin air. What happened?

All images ETO/ Richard Hubert Smith

This remarkable chamber opera by Peter Maxwell Davies tells us. Or does it? In the first half three officers who arrived at the Lighthouse tell a later enquiry what they encountered. Everything apparently in order, a meal partly eaten, a chair lying slightly broken, and not a soul to be seen. Their reports on the chair differ, as would any eyewitness accounts, but what they found seems clear enough. Then in part two, after the interval, the three officers, strongly sung and with excellent diction by Adam Tunnicliffe, Nicholas Merryweather and Richard Mosley-Evans, reappear as the three lighthouse keepers.

The three lighthouse keepers

Three people with their own ghosts, each a little worrisome in his own way. Mosley-Evans as the bass is a religious nut, prone to Biblical visions, and in a Peter Grimes type of way sings, “Time to light the lantern shining across the seas of sinfulness”. Is he crazy, or is Merryweather the baritone the crazy one, singing of a heinous crime he got away with as a teenager? The music already got strangely excitable in the first half and in the second half it heaves with emotional energy. Played by a smallish group of instrumentalists it was directed by Richard Baker, who kept the tension going very well.

Tension arises

Because of stormy seas the keepers had been left alone too long, and their equanimity is beginning to crack. Tunnicliffe as the tenor is the first to be hit, and this production, brilliantly directed by Ted Huffman, with designs by Neil Irish, leaves us wondering what will happen next. Lighting by Guy Hoare is superb, with its subtle changes from cold to warm, and in the end it gives a fine impression of a lighthouse beam rotating and playing on a scene that is not quite what it seems.

To find the answer, or at least an answer, as to what happened witness the opera yourself. It’s a powerful work.

Performances continue at the Linbury Studio Theatre, 13th Oct – 7:45 pm; West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, 16th Oct – 7:30 pm; Exeter Northcott, 24th Oct – 7:30 pm; Harrogate Theatre, 1st Nov – 7:30 pm; Theatre Royal Bath, 6th Nov – 7:30 pm; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 9th Nov – 7:30 pm. For details click here.

Albert Herring, English Touring Opera, ETO, Linbury Studio, Covent Garden, October 2012

This delightful comic opera by Benjamin Britten creates a deftly woven musical tapestry performed by thirteen instrumentalists and roughly the same number of singers. Eric Crozier based his libretto on a tale by Guy de Maupassant, transferring it to a Suffolk town and creating a glorious critique of small town mentality, pomposity and sexual repression.

Albert as May King, all images ETO/ Richard Hubert Smith

The local bigwig Lady Billows presides over the choice of May Queen, but her busybody assistant Florence Pike finds a moral imperfection in every nominee, so they decide on a May King instead, with the flawlessly simple greengrocer Albert Herring fulfilling the role. But he too is human and the twenty-five sovereigns prize is partly spent on a night of dissolution, after which he can finally break away from his domineering mother. Britten never wrote a sequel, but we are left with the impression that Albert could very likely marry — possibly the pretty schoolteacher Miss Wordsworth — and make his escape permanent.

Sid and Nancy

Apart from a disappointing Lady Billows the cast sang very well, and Mark Wilde made a suitably shy and uncertain Albert. Rosie Aldridge sang a strong Miss Pike, giving a wonderful delivery of that line, “Country virgins, if there be such, think too little and see too much”. With no surtitles her diction was admirably clear, a benchmark that one or two other cast members might better strive to achieve. As a lovely Miss Wordsworth in her pretty costume, Anna-Clare Monk was delightful, her rehearsing of the children’s singing most charmingly witty. Charles Johnston and Tim Dawkins provided fine vocal depth and stage presence as the vicar and superintendent, and Charles Rice and Martha Jones formed an excellent team as Albert’s friends Sid and Nancy.

Miss Wordsworth rehearses the children

The spare but effective set designs by Neil Irish, aided by Guy Hoare’s clever lighting allow subtle changes of scene, all within the same framework. Excellent costumes too, and very good direction by Christopher Rolls. The members of the Aurora Orchestra played extremely well under the baton of Michael Rosewall, and I particularly liked the solos on the French horn and the saxophone.

Albert Herring continues on tour at: Linbury Studio Theatre, 10th Oct – 7:45 pm; West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, 17th Oct, 19th Oct – 7:30 pm; Exeter Northcott, 25th, 27th Oct – 7:30 pm; Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells, 30th Oct – 7:30 pm; Harrogate Theatre, 2nd Nov – 7:30 pm; Theatre Royal Bath, 5th Nov – 7:30 pm; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 10th Nov – 7:30 pm; Malvern Theatres, 13th Nov – 7:30 pm; Buxton Opera House, 16th Nov – 7:30 pm. For details click here.

Jakob Lenz, English National Opera, ENO, Hampstead Theatre, April 2012

It’s not often you see the main performer in an opera fall into deep water on stage. In fact I’m sure I’ve never seen such a thing before, and this was not metaphorical water. It was the real thing, and Andrew Shore gave a remarkable performance as the eponymous character.

Lenz and Friederike

Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz was a German dramatist, writer and poet, born in what is now Latvia in 1751. After being banished from Weimar in 1776 for writing a scurrilous poem poking fun at various members of the court, his life gradually became dominated by mental instability, sympathetically portrayed in a prose study by Georg Büchner — known to opera lovers as the author of a play on which Berg’s Wozzeck is based. Büchner’s work inspired this chamber opera by Wolfgang Rihm, written in 1977–78.

It is in thirteen scenes, which are carried through without a break, the whole thing lasting just 75 minutes. But what an experience this is of a man descending into madness, or is he sane and the world around him is going gradually crazy? The water is ever present. He falls into it again, and again, and in scene 5 after preaching in the church he baptises a girl by submersion. Later the child is drowned by Friederike Brion, an ex-lover of Goethe about whom Lenz felt passionately. She lies dead even after Lenz commands her, “Arise and walk”, … but then later Friederike escorts her from the stage. It was all in Lenz’s mind, and it was an inspiration by director Sam Brown to bring in an actress to portray Friederike in a full eighteenth hair-do and finery.

The other singing roles here are taken by Jonathan Best as the Lutheran pastor, building a new church whose roof is finally fitted in the last scene, and Richard Roberts as Kaufmann, a friend of Lenz who comes to visit him in the village in Alsace. He too is dressed in eighteenth century finery with rouged cheeks, serving to contrast the urban world that Lenz has left with the natural world he now inhabits.

Designs by Annemarie Woods with excellent lighting by Guy Hoare help give an almost supernatural sense of impending insanity, very apposite to Lenz’s condition which many have considered to be a case of schizophrenia. This is a fascinating work and the programme notes help illuminate the background to Lenz himself.

Musically the rhythms keep changing, and the small orchestra of eleven players, including three cellos but no other stringed instruments, was very ably conducted by Alex Ingram. He seemed effortlessly to keep the singers in phase with the music, which can’t be easy. Sam Brown’s production is not to be missed, but what really made this such a remarkable performance was Andrew Shore in the title role.

Performances continue until April 27 — for details click here.

The Duenna, English Touring Opera [ETO], Royal Opera House Linbury Studio, October 2010

What fun this is! When I go to a comic opera I smile sometimes but towards the end of this romp, written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, I was laughing out loud. Actually it’s more Singspiel than opera, and none the worse for that. The music is delightful, written largely by Thomas Linley and his son Tom Linley, who wrote more of it than anyone else. Young Tom Linley was born the same year as Mozart (1756), but died in an accident when he was 22. He and Mozart met in 1770 and became friends, and as the music historian Charles Burney wrote that year about his travels in Italy, “The ‘Tommasino’, as he is called, and the little Mozart, are talked of all over Italy, as the most promising geniusses of this age.” The music for this charming comedy was written in 1775.

The story is full of misunderstandings and furious assertions of irrevocable decisions, but the essence of the plot is quite simple. The wealthy Don Jerome has a son and a daughter, Ferdinand and Louisa, who are in imminent danger of losing their lovers. One because her father is about to send her to a convent, and the other because Don Jerome rejects Louisa’s choice of the genteel but impoverished Antonio. He wants her to marry the dreadfully silly, but wealthy Isaac Mendosa. The Duenna is Louisa’s guardian in the household, but the two of them change places with hilarious results.

Richard Suart as Don Jerome was absolutely super. Assertive and irascible, he sang and spoke superbly. His diction was brilliant as was that of the whole cast. Nuala Willis as the Duenna was enormous fun, playing her part with relish, and Adrian Thompson as Isaac Mendoza gave an excellent portrayal of a wealthy by smug little twerp who thinks he’s frightfully cunning. Adam Tunnicliffe as the masquerader is on the stage much of the time, and his movements were delightful, helping the drama silently as if he were a single-person Greek chorus.

The Duenna and Don Jerome

The designs by Adam Wiltshire are glorious. The stage set-up with screens, and people appearing in frames to read letters they wrote, is really inspired. Marvellous lighting by Guy Hoare, all directed by Michael Barker-Caven, with the ETO Baroque Orchestra directed from the harpsichord by Joseph McHardy. It’s a pleasure to see English Touring Opera in London, and know that they will be taking this delightful production to other cities. It deserves to be a sell-out everywhere.

Two more performances at Covent Garden are scheduled for October 15 and 16 (matinee), after which it will tour to the following venues: Theatre Royal Bath, Oct 18 and 19; Malvern Theatres, Oct 22; De la Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, Oct 27; Exeter Northcott, Oct 30; Cambridge Arts Theatre, Nov 4 and 5; Harrogate Theatre, Nov 8; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Nov 27.