I hear those voices that will not be drowned.Peter Grimes
This last week was both thrilling and very emotional for me. Thrilling because I was lucky enough to attend not one but two Britten operas - Albert Herring in the flesh and Peter Grimes in Met simulcast mode - and emotional because in different ways both of these productions brought to the surface so much of what I remember and feel about my youth and growing up in East Anglia.
On Monday evening I attended one of the final dress rehearsals for the Portland Opera Studio Artists production of Albert Herring a work which I have listened to a number of times but which I had never seen before. Those of you who are familiar with Britten's work will know that a great deal of what he wrote addresses the issues surrounding the loss of innocence. Two years ago the Studio Artists performed The Rape of Lucretia, also by Britten, an opera which sees that loss of innocence through a very dark prism (well, duh!). With Albert Herring, written in 1947, the year after Rape of Lucretia and two years after Peter Grimes it is almost as though Britten was saying "Enough dark psychological trauma already. Let's have a laugh!" And what a romp it is. It is actually funny. I say that because it seems to me that so many works labeled as comedy (Mr Shakespeare?) don't actually make me laugh. Perhaps that this one succeeds so well is because Eric Crozier, the librettist, chose as the basis for his material a story by Guy de Maupassant - and the French as no other nation I can think of really do know how to be funny about sex. Two things struck me about the opera as I sat and watched this totally delightful production: it is a very visual piece and it is a splendid example of how seriously Britten took his art and his craft. When I think of the visual aspects I immediately have in mind Act 3 when Albert returns from his night on the tiles and is quizzed as to where he has been. Listening to a recording cannot possibly convey the humour of Albert's responses. (As a side bar, while I intentionally do not review Portland Opera productions in my blog, someone whose operatic experience and knowledge I very much respect said after watching this performance that Brendan Tuohy was "born to play the part of Albert" and while that may seem hyperbole I'm not sure he is wrong. Tuohy nailed it.) What I mean by Britten being serious is that even in a piece which could have been lightweight he invests every aspect of his genius and skill in making a work of great musical and dramatic worth.
Albert Herring is set in the fictional East Suffolk village of Loxford. I say fictional. Crozier couldn't have had in mind the actual Suffolk village of Yoxford, could he? I grew up in that area and watching the opera was in many ways like watching a musical replay of my teen years (No, I was not like Albert!). So many of the tiny places mentioned (Peasenhall, Snape, - I could go on and on) formed my stamping ground. There was even a moment when I swear my senses played a cruel trick on me and for a split second I could smell the bean fields which lined the narrow roads I used to wander watching for plover and curlew and pheasant. There is even mention in the opera of the train from Ipswich to Saxmundham. I used to take this train at the beginning and end of each school term, the final leg of the journey from Saxmundham to Framlingham being accomplished by bus. That train bore a striking resemblance to the Hogworts Special, huge and black and enveloped in steam and noise and full of screaming boys (no girls at that time) and trunks and tuck boxes. I don't believe that train has run since 1962. I remember it as clearly as though it were yesterday - a cliché but true.
I wondered how funny Albert Herring would be to those who have never been within thousands of miles of Suffolk. Those present when I saw it seemed to find it more than a little amusing. Perhaps for some of them it was like watching a live edition of Masterpiece Theater.
Then on Saturday, Peter Grimes. I had read a number of reviews of this production most of which seemed to damn it with faint praise so I tried to keep my expectations to a reasonable level. I was not disappointed. It is very hard for me to watch or listen to Peter Grimes and not think there was a great deal of it that was autobiographical for Britten. As a young shy boy at Greshams School in Norfolk Britten must have experienced a good deal of the bullying and peer pressure Crabbe painted so vividly in his poem which became the libretto for Britten's opera. And than as a grown, gay man living in a country where homosexuality was still a criminal offence he would have been very familiar with feeling himself an outsider in the community within which he was trapped. I cannot help but think he must have lived in daily terror of being exposed as a gay man attracted to under-age boys. That terror c0mes out in Grimes, a man who tries to convince himself that with enough money and a wife he can lead a 'normal' life, while knowing within that it will never be possible and that his demons will prevail.
Antony Dean Griffey in the name role was in excellent voice and nicely portrayed the ambiguity inherent in Grimes - is he victim, predator or both? Natalie Dessay interviewing him during the intermission asked Griffey whether he had found it necessary personally to come to a conclusion on that issue. Yes, he said, indeed he had. And then, very wisely I thought, declined to be drawn on what his conclusion was, saying that it would be better for the audience to make up its own mind. I very much enjoyed his characterisation of Grimes I am excited that he is coming to Portland next year to appear in The Turn of The Screw with Portland Opera. Patricia Racette made a convincing and moving Ellen Orford. Actually, the standard of singing and acting was outstanding all across the board. Donald Runnicles got everything possible out of the orchestra who were in wonderful form. And the chorus were quite splendid. The new Chorus Master at the Met, Donald Palumbo seems to be doing everything right. A chorus which just a couple of years ago was ragged and undisciplined is shaping up to be something very special.
I knew that sitting and watching Peter Grimes for the first time in many years would be an emotional experience for me. So much of my childhood,teen years and young adult life were spent in Suffolk with and around Britten and the Aldeburgh Festival. Perhaps my most treasured possession is a leather-bound full score of War Requiem which Britten gave to me, signed by him and Peter Pears. "Peter and I thought you would like this..." he said holding out the handsome green volume. I was gob-smacked then and to this day I cannot hold and look at that score without intense feelings welling up inside of me. So when, during one of the intermissions the Met broadcast went live to the cinema in Aldeburgh and then showed shots inside the Red House where BB and PP lived together and where I had sat with them and with Imogen Holst and many others over the years, playing and singing, and the beach where I hunched in the on-shore breeze with Jimmy Blades the finest of all percussionists, eating sandwiches and guzzling beer from a bottle...well, it was all too much for me I'm afraid. I am very happy I went but it has taken me all weekend to recover some sense of equilibrium.
And I do so wish I were a better writer more able to convey all that went through my mind this week. I am conscious that this post is a ramble down my own memory lane which may hold but little interest for many of you. Forgive me. Next week I'll tell you about my going to see Stephen Sondheim at the Schnitz. Now that was fun so come back, y'all hear?
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