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.

The Emperor of Atlantis, English Touring Opera, ETO, Linbury Studio, October 2012

This extraordinary one-act opera was composed in the Nazi concentration camp Terezin (Theresienstadt), located in what is now the Czech Republic near the German border. Its composer Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944), born in a small town near the meeting point of what is now the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, was a serious musician who had studied in Vienna under Schoenberg. He and his librettist Peter Kien essentially completed their work in 1943, but the Nazis terminated it during rehearsals. The following year almost all the creative team and half the singers were sent to Auschwitz, where most of them met death before liberation in 1945.

The Prologue, all images ETO/ Richard Hubert Smith

One of the main characters in the opera is Death itself, whose eternal rights are being usurped by Emperor Überall of Atlantis, a thinly veiled representation of the mad German leadership. He commands everyone to fight until there are no survivors, but it is not so simple. A soldier and maiden find themselves quite unable to kill one another, and people are in limbo between life and death. Harlequin appeals to the emperor to cease, the Drummer (Eva Braun?) urges him on, but in a moment of introspection the emperor enters the mirror and meets Death. They do a deal — Death will resume his normal duties if the emperor will be the first to try out the new death. He agrees, and the suffering people can once more find release in the natural processes of the grim reaper.

Drummer, Emperor, Harlequin

The staging by James Conway is simple and very effective, with Neil Irish’s elaborately garish costumes and tiny stage surmounted by curved parallel bars of iron reminiscent of the Auschwitz entrance sign. The singing was uniformly excellent with Robert Winslade Anderson as Death, Richard Mosley-Evans as the Emperor, Callum Thorpe as the Loudspeaker, and Paula Sides, Jeffrey Stewart, Katie Bray and Rupert Charlesworth as the Maiden, Harlequin, Drummer and Soldier.

Conducting by Peter Selwyn maintained the tension in this musically intriguing and extremely moving work that used only instruments available in the camp. It involves the Martin Luther hymn Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, which Bach later used as a source for his chorale cantata of the same name, and James Conway has prefaced the drama with another highly appropriate Bach cantata Christ lag in Todes banden (Christ lay in the bonds of death), which stresses the struggle between life and death.

Death and the Emperor

As the opera progressed I found myself drawn ever closer to seeing the madness that contaminated Europe not so very long ago. Unquestionably worth seeing, and the programme is good value for the director’s notes and the essay by David Fligg, let alone the other two operas (Albert Herring and The Lighthouse) on the ETO’s autumn tour.

Atlantis continues on tour at: Linbury Studio Theatre, 12th Oct – 8:00 pm; West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, 18th Oct – 8:15 pm; Alyth Gardens, London, NW11, 20th Oct – 7:15 pm; Exeter Northcott, 26th Oct – 8:15 pm; Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells, 29th Oct – 8:15 pm; Harrogate Theatre, 3rd Nov – 8:15 pm; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 11th Nov – 4:00 pm; Great Malvern Priory, 14th Nov – 8:15 pm; Buxton Opera House, 17th Nov – 8:15 pm. For further details click here.

La Clemenza di Tito, English Touring Opera, ETO, Hackney Empire, London, March 2011

This is essentially Mozart’s last opera, though its premiere on 6^th September 1791, was 24 days ahead of Zauberflöte. The title character, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian as Roman Emperor, and the opera is concerned with issues about his choice of wife, and a plot to assassinate him.

The background to the story is that while Vespasian was alive, Titus fell in love with the Judaean queen Berenice, and she later lived with him in Rome. The love between Titus and Berenice was very recently the subject of a new one-act ballet, Invitus Invitam, by Kim Brandstrup, showing Titus’s awful dilemma. Roman opposition to his choice of the foreign queen as a future wife led him to give her up, and this is roughly where the opera starts.

Gillian Ramm as Vitellia

Vitellia (daughter of Vitellius, who had been emperor for over a half a year before being deposed by Vespasian) is determined to marry Titus, which will help regain power for her own faction. Her fury at his plans to marry Berenice lead her to plot his assassination, and to accomplish this she uses Titus’s close friend Sextus, who adores her. When Titus rejects Berenice she hesitates, but when he chooses Sextus’s sister Servilia, she renews her demands for his death. In the meantime, Servilia confesses to Titus that she is already betrothed to Annius, a friend of Sextus and supporter of Titus, so he chooses Vitellia to be his wife, but the plot is already in motion, and Act I ends with a partial destruction of the city and erroneous announcement that Titus is dead.

Titus and Sextus in Act 2, all photos by Richard Hubert Smith

Redemption for all guilty parties has to wait for the second and final act, which shows the magnanimity of Titus. The title La Clemenza di Tito is of course Italian, but this production is sung in English, and for that reason no surtitles were shown. This was a great shame because the diction for some of the singers was not at all clear, and anyone going to see this should first read the excellent synopsis in the programme.

The production by James Conway, with large but simple designs by Neil Irish, worked very well, and the modern costumes with Titus, Sextus and Annius in military uniform were really rather effective. The roles of Sextus and Annius are both trouser roles, so it helps to see them both in very masculine costumes.

The chorus at the end with Titus above

Mark Wilde sang Titus with superb clarity, showing excellent stage presence, and Philip Spendley was terrific as Publius, the prefect of the Praetorian Guard. The opera starts with a monologue by Vitellia, who was most beautifully sung by Gillian Ramm, and Julia Riley sang strongly as Sextus, portraying the role of a man very well indeed. Rhona McKall was a lovely Servilia, and Charlotte Stephenson a most earnest Annius. Bravo to the English Touring Opera for putting this on, but I do have one very serious reservation. With the absence of surtitles it was impossible to understand what was being sung for much of the time. The men, Mark Wilde and Philip Spendley, had wonderful diction, so no problem there, but the women were all to a greater or lesser extent incomprehensible. The ETO certainly do use surtitles, as they did with the two Puccini operas, so there is no reason they cannot do similarly when the operas are given in English, just as the ENO now do.

Apart from this one reservation, I think the ETO are doing a wonderful job with these touring productions of some very fine operas. Mozart’s music for this one is glorious, and Richard Lewis in the orchestra pit fully brought out its beauty, keeping very much in touch with the singers.

After this performance in Hackney, La Clemenza di Tito goes on tour to the following venues: Cambridge Arts Theatre, March 16, 19; Exeter Northcott, March 23, 26; Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells, March 29; The Hawth, Crawley, April 2; The Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, April 6, 9; The Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, April 12; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, April 16; Norwich Theatre Royal, April 19; Buxton Opera House, May 6; Hall for Cornwall, Truro, May 11; Lighthouse, Poole, May 14; Gala Theatre, Durham, May 17; Perth Festival, Perth Theatre, May 20; Grand Opera House, Belfast, May 28.

Il Tabarro, and Gianni Schicchi, English Touring Opera, ETO, Hackney Empire, March 2011

Of the operas dealing with unfaithfulness in marriage, where a man kills his wife’s lover, the two that really get to me are Mascagni’s Cavalieri Rusticana, and Puccini’s Il Tabarro. The Puccini is a superbly dark and intense drama and, like his other operas, combines musical depth with gripping theatre. Moored on the Seine is a barge whose owner, Michele has lost the love of his much younger wife, Giorgetta after the loss of their baby a year before. While he manages the business and broods, she takes up with a handsome young stevedore named Luigi.

Luigi and Giorgetta, all photos by Richard Hubert Smith

The end is never in doubt, but in the meantime we hear about the frustrations of life. There are two other stevedores: Tinca who drinks because his wife goes with other men, and Talpa whose wife comes to the boat and tells Giorgetta of her dreams for a quiet retirement. At this point, Julie Unwin who sang Giorgetta with immense emotional power, launched into È ben altro il mio sogno! giving us the highlight of the evening, a wonderful cri de coeur for the romance of life in a Paris suburb. Two young lovers lighten the mood before the end when Luigi mistakes the lighting of Michele’s pipe for Giorgetta’s signal to come to the boat and meet her. When she finally reappears from below deck, she tries to make up with her husband and reminds him he once told her that everyone wears a cloak (tabarro) that sometimes hides happiness, sometimes something sad. “And sometimes a crime” is the response.

Michele lights his pipe, heralding the dénouement

Simon Thorpe gave us a sympathetic portrayal of Michele, with Charne Rochford handsome and strong-voiced as his wife’s lover. Tinca and Talpa were wonderfully portrayed by Andrew Glover and Arwel Huw Morgan, and with James Conway’s direction the whole cast worked tremendously well together. The designs by Neil Irish gave just the right sense of darkness and closeness, and while this was very much a team effort, Julie Unwin was assuredly the star — utterly convincing in her amorous frustration.

Gianni Schicchi was a fine way to end the evening, and Richard Mosley-Evans played the title role with great theatrical panache. This was enormous fun, with Paula Sides as Schicchi’s daughter, and Ashley Catling as her fiancé, along with Buoso’s ridiculously grasping family, the doctor, the lawyer and the witnesses.

Reading Buoso's will before Schicchi arrives

The whole thing came off very well indeed, and Paula Sides gave a lovely rendering of O mio babbino caro. The ending, with the fires of hell spouting up as if by accident from the boxes in the room, and the dead Buoso tumbling out of a cupboard, was a fitting finale to a fine evening’s entertainment, well conducted by Michael Rosewall in the orchestra pit.

Lauretta pleads with her father Schicchi: O mio babbino caro

After a further performance in London at the Hackney Empire on March 11, this pair of operas goes on tour to the following venues: Cambridge Arts Theatre, March 17, 18; Exeter Northcott, March 24, 25; Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells, March 28; The Hawth, Crawley, April 1; The Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, April 7, 8; The Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, April 11; Snape Maltings Concert Hall, April 15; Norwich Theatre Royal, April 20; Wolverhampton Grand Theatre, May 3; Buxton Opera House, May 5; Hall for Cornwall, Truro, May 10; Lighthouse, Poole, May 13; Gala Theatre, Durham, May 16; Perth Festival, Perth Theatre, May 21; Grand Opera House, Belfast, May 26, 27.