Peter Grimes, in concert, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, August 2012

For those who saw English National Opera’s new production of Peter Grimes in 2009, here was a chance to savour the full glory of Britten’s score. With the ENO orchestra and chorus in the vast expanse of the Albert Hall under brilliant direction by Edward Gardner, this was a musical treat.

As Grimes himself, Stuart Skelton gave a hugely powerful performance, with Amanda Roocroft warmly sympathetic as Ellen Orford, the same pair as in the 2009 production. Once again Rebecca de Pont Davies gave a fine performance of Auntie, and Gillian Ramm and Mairéad Buicke sang beautifully as her ‘nieces’. Felicity Palmer gave a witty portrayal of the spiteful Mrs Sedley, Leigh Melrose a strong performance as the apothecary Ned Keene, and Iain Paterson was terrific as Captain Balstrode. If the ENO restage this in coming years, one can only hope they will be able to call on his services for the role.

Despite the fact that this was a concert performance, broadcast on Radio 3, those of us in the audience had the advantage of some clever staging. Grimes’s new apprentice was present, cowering under his fierce domination, and at the beginning of Act II while Ellen is singing alone, the chorus (in church) turned round towards the chorus master, who conducted them standing in front of the bust of Henry Wood. As they sang, the Albert Hall organ played — a lovely touch. Then as the act progressed, Skelton hit his forehead in frustration, before calming down and trying to encourage the boy, sending him off-stage and letting him down by a rope. As the men from the town approached he forgot the rope, and we witnessed the fatal moment. At the end of the act, Balstrode stood alone on stage, the viola produced another solo, beautifully played by Amélie Roussel, and he slowly picked up one of the boots the boy had left behind.

Act III started with an off-stage band for the tavern scene, but as the chorus and principal singers start to express their disapproval of Grimes, using strong arm gestures, the stage was set for Amanda Roocroft to give a lovely rendering of “Peter, we’ve come to take you home”. To her horror, Balstrode tells him to take the boat out and sink it, and Grimes slowly exited winding his way through the audience in the pit. The singers returned to stage, the chorus intoned words about the majestic sweep of the sea, and this superb performance came to an end.

Edward Gardner with the ENO orchestra and chorus, along with Stuart Skelton as Grimes raised this to the very highest level, and I cannot wait to hear them do it again at the London Coliseum.

The Passenger, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, September 2011

A ship bound for South America in the early 1960s is taking a German diplomat and his wife Liese to a post in Brazil. Steep stairways connect the upper deck of the ship to the hell of 1940s Auschwitz below. Nearly twenty years after the Second World War a guard and a prisoner of the concentration camp are on the same ship — or are they?

The prisoner Tadeusz plays Bach, all photos Catherine Ashmore

The set design was the idea of librettist Alexander Medvedev who died just a few days before the opera’s first staged performance at the Bregenz Festival in 2010. The composer himself, Mieczysław Weinberg, died in early 1996, but incredibly enough the ex-prisoner of Auschwitz who wrote the original story appeared on stage at the end, looking much younger than her 88 years. Zofia Posmysz, a young Polish woman, was one of the few who survived, and after the war she became a journalist. One day in the late 1950s she was sent on a quick round-trip visit to Paris and found herself close to a party of German tourists. She thought she heard the voice of one of the guards in the camp, “And there on the Place de la Concorde I heard that shrill voice yelling again. …  I looked in all directions and searched for her … my heart had stopped beating for a moment”. Back in Poland she wrote a radio play inspired by this incident, but in order that the guard could not get away, she set it on an ocean liner.

Weinberg and his librettist turned it into an opera in 1968, but it remained unstaged until last year. Weinberg was a Pole who escaped to the Soviet Union in 1939, but since his work did not fit the political correctness of so-called ‘Soviet Realism’, it was largely ignored. Musicians however knew it well, and Shostakovich wrote that he would never tire of this opera, “I have heard it three times already and have studied the score. …  [it] stirs the very soul in dramatic terms”. The music is on a subtle psychological level, sometimes represented by a single instrument, and at one point a solo violin is played on stage by one of the prisoners. This addition to Ms Posmysz’s original story is very effective. As she herself recalls, “The worst … was in 1943 and 1944 when huge numbers of Hungarian Jews were transported to the camp. … these masses of people were marched off towards the crematorium … and our excellent orchestra stood in front of the block Kommandant’s quarters and played … all those cheerful pieces [such as] Ich brauche keine Millionen“. This jaunty foxtrot can be heard on YouTube, and it’s a shock to listen and imagine . . . But to get back to the opera, the violinist is commanded to play the Kommandant’s favourite waltz. He knows he will be killed afterwards, so he plays Bach instead, is beaten to death, and his priceless instrument smashed to pieces. Later on the ship, the band plays the Kommandant’s waltz, apparently requested by the passenger who was once a prisoner. The effect on the guard is devastating, and the ghost of the past sends her down from the upper deck to the camp beneath.

The ship’s band plays the Kommandant’s waltz

This fine production by David Pountney with sets by Johan Engels and costumes by Marie-Jeanne Lecca, was cleverly lit by Fabrice Kebour, sometimes from high above, sometimes from below. It’s a superb set with the white of the ship and its occupants contrasted with the darkness of the camp, and the railway tracks. Deft conducting by Richard Armstrong, and excellent singing from Michelle Breedt as Liese with Kim Begley as her diplomat husband, and especially Giselle Allen as Marta the prisoner whose role parallels that of the author herself. It’s a great team effort, with Leigh Melrose and Julia Sporsén as two of the other main prisoners. The story and subsequent opera is a remarkable creation, beautifully staged, and I shall go again.

Performances continue until October 25 — for details click here.

A Dog’s Heart, English National Opera, ENO at the London Coliseum, November 2010

It’s 113 pages in my translation — Bulgakov’s novel I mean — and I wondered how it would convert to an opera. But it did, and it works, brilliantly.

The Dog in the Apartment, all photos by Stephen Cummiskey

A Dog’s Heart is a striking exposé of the massive Soviet experiment instigated by Lenin and Trotsky. Bulgakov tells of a senior physician, eminent for rejuvenating the bodily functions of his patients, who picks up a stray dog. The animal, woefully undernourished and mistreated, is ready to die of hunger in the winter snow, but the medical professor takes him back to his apartment and treats him well. When a young man dies in an accident, they harvest his pituitary gland and testicles, and implant them in the dog. The result is a new man, a rude, aggressive, dishonest man who creates havoc. The good and peaceful dog has become a menace to a society that welcomed him but unwisely tried to turn him into something else. It was an experiment with results that its creator had not been prepared for. His life has been turned upside down, and there appears to be no solution.

Professor and Dog

It may sound an unpromising subject for an opera, and I wondered whether the result would convey all the bizarre aspects of the story. But it did! The composer, Alexander Raskatov has created a multi-faceted ‘polystylistic’ score that does justice to the serious nature of the professor, the wild nature of the dog/man, and the insidiously destructive nature of the new regime. Raskatov has not previously been a well-known composer, having spent several years reconstructing Schnittke’s ninth symphony after that composer’s death in 1998, but this opera — his first — will surely put him on the map. It was first produced earlier this year at the Dutch National Opera, and will apparently move to the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg next year. The libretto in Russian by Cesare Mazzonis hews closely to Bulgakov’s original story, and is heard here in translation by Martin Pickard.

The production by Simon McBurney — a collaboration between Complicite, Dutch National, and the ENO — is riveting. There is perpetual action and movement without in any way detracting or distracting from the music, and the puppetry by the Blind Summit Theatre is excellent. The dog comes to life and elicits our sympathy, and the set designs by Michael Levine give just the right atmosphere, helped by Paul Anderson’s lighting and the costumes by Christina Cunningham. I loved the operation on the dog being done by silhouettes, the wacky dance movements by Zina the maid, and the projection designs by Finn Ross. This is McBurney’s first opera direction and I hope he does more.

The new man (left) creates havoc

For those who want to read something other than a mere synopsis of Bulgakov’s magical satire — which was written in 1925 but banned by the Soviet authorities until 1987 — the programme contains an excellent essay by James Meek. He refers to Bulgakov’s ability to shift the narrative perspective, which I think is well reflected in Raskatov’s polystylism, and he gives an excellent summing up of the hubris in the great Soviet experiment, and its comparison to the medical experiment carried out by the professor and his assistant Dr. Bormanthal. As the professor says, “These hands have turned a harmless friendly dog into a monster”. A monster who shouts about his ‘rights’, like a yobbo taunting a respected teacher, and comes out with Soviet expressions such as ‘bourgeois filth’ when referring to cats. What can the professor do about it all? If you haven’t read the book I won’t spoil it, but as the professor says, almost at the end, “Animals revert to their own nature”.

Man becomes Dog again

The music was beautifully conducted by Garry Walker, and the singing was excellent from the whole cast. It was a team effort, and I find it difficult to single out individuals, but Steven Page as the professor carried the role off to perfection. Dr. Bormenthal was well portrayed by Leigh Melrose, Zina the maid by Nancy Allen Lundy, Sharikov the awful man/dog brilliantly played by Peter Hoare, and the dog’s voice was shared by counter-tenor Andrew Watts and soprano Elena Vassilieva, who also sang the cook.

If you want something a little spicier than Covent Garden’s new production of an opera they have not produced for over a hundred years — I refer to Adriana Lecouvreur — then go to this new ENO production. Instead of the violets in Cilea’s plot for Adriana — a late romantic device that doesn’t convince — we have a scientific experiment that serves as a great metaphor for all pseudo-scientific attempts to create a brave new society, and in that sense carries a timeless message. This is the type of production that the English National Opera does very well indeed, and they have excelled themselves. Congratulations.

Further performances are scheduled for Nov. 24, 26, 30 and Dec. 2, 4 — for details click here.