Britten Operas

[The new erato]

Desire, hysteria, betrayal, death--these are something new in opera?

Or on this board? OK; perhaps not death, but certainly the first three.

[Octave]

Or on this board? OK; perhaps not death, but certainly the first three.

Cha-ching!

[Sean]

Hi Mike, great post. I do know all the Britten operas well and bought most on CD- will try find time to contribute more here.

You forgot Peter Grimes and the suspicious killing of little boys while out alone with them...

Name me a great artist who was not flawed. Here we have to face flat on that very thing we worry about in Britten's make up. His predilection for young boys, the desire for which is played out here quite explicitly. If Wagner was obsessed by redemption, Britten dwelt on the corruption of innocence, in this, The Rape of Lucretia, Billy Budd, Death in Venice and even in Midsummer Night's Dream where Oberon carries off Puck.

[Mandryka]

Hi Mike, great post. I do know all the Britten operas well and bought most on CD- will try find time to contribute more here.

You forgot Peter Grimes and the suspicious killing of little boys while out alone with them...

I'm sure BB adored the company of boys. As far as I know he never abused any boys in any way, physically or psychologically. Or am I wrong about that?

Basically he was a pedophile who kept his desires in check, as far as I know.

[knight66]

We have discussed this and the newer evidence. I agree your final sentence, not so sure that despite there being no physical abuse that no one was psychologically damaged. Some certainly attest to fond memories of being the special one. David Hemmings related the mental affects of being the chosen one and being treated as a special friend, then on the day his voice showed signs of breaking, being cast out and ignored as a non-person. Bewilderment, sense of guilt, sense of loss.

But as we have seen, acting out or not, the theme pervades a lot of his most important work and even in the opera I reviewed, I decided not to get into the double meanings of the list of Latin words put into the mouth of the young singers portraying Miles. A very esoteric kind of abuse.

Mike

[Sean]

I see. All rather strange I guess; Britten had his partner so you might think that side of his life was sorted. I just listen to the music, most of the time without watching the libretto- I guess I've only found time to follow a handful of the operas by anyone I've explored. Britten's music quality varies quite a lot and I certainly agree that he never surpassed Grimes the first large scale opera; the later emphasis on motifs over closed melody was a good idea but it didn't really work for him, music's inner logic started eluding him without the reassuring formal frames- he should have studied Bax more...

[knight66]

Britten: The Rape of Lucretia.   Sarah Connolly, Christopher Maltman, John Mark Ainsley, Orla Boylan ENO at Maltings, Paul Daniel. Dir David McVicar.

This performance has languished in the vaults for over a decade. Often that suggests there is a problem in the quality of the performance. The release was managed after a sustained campaign by, amongst others, Sarah Connolly. It is superb and riviting. Not the hint of a weak link, it is moving and beautiful and sickening just as the composer designed.

The piece is a chamber opera, the small scale in contrast to its immediate predecessor Peter Grimes. That decision to explore the small scale was an artistic decision, but also played into a situation of post war austerity: it enabled the piece to have many more performances and to play in spaces Grimes could not reach.

Small scale does not imply any lack of drama or power, rather here it concentrates both. There is one perceived problem with the opera, it is strangely structured. Despite being set in roughly 500BC, there are two Greek Chorus style commentators who filter the action through a Christian redemptive paradigm. There is Marian invocation, Christ's tears are claimed to wash the pain and sin away. This technique can have a distancing effect. It is curious. Had the Chorus been left merely to react, the 'problem' would be insignificant. Britten responded to adverse comments by editing the framing down and what we see now is seemingly less overtly Christian than in the original. McVicar suggests that Britten having visited a concentration camp, he was reflecting a need to make sense of the war and what happened in Europe: thirsting for some path of redemption leading from it.

McVicar breaks tradition here and brings the Chorus from the edge of the stage into the action as unacknowledged shadows who react to and empathise with the characters. This works well and removes some of the distancing effect stationary commentators can have. Both singers are first rate.

The acting is all round excellent and the stage design simple and pared down. Two stand out, as they should. Maltman is absolutely the sin with so much grace. He is handsome, dissolute, full of suppressed anger, lust, self disgust. He dominates physically the men around him and then is so believable in his brutal despoiling of Lucretia. He was a Cardiff singer of the world Lieder winner and has had a really good career, this is a high point. Sarah Connelly is a natural for this role. With a powerful voice she acts well, bringing a slight hysterical neediness to the early scenes when she does not seem to be able to function without the presence of her husband. Her extreme reaction of suicide later feels to me more believable within that context. Her tone is generous, juicy and she brings dignity, fear, loss and grief to the part.

I only know the piece from the Britten CDs, but it seems to me that Daniel has a complete grasp of it. The orchestra, as with 'Turn of the Screw', sounds much more lush than might be expected from so few players. Britten was a wonderful orchestrator. Even at 14 he pastiched the Ravel/Debussy soundworld marvellously in his 'Four French Songs', so the textures and sounds here are very far from ascetically pared down.

If you want the piece, don't hesitate, this performance is well worthy of it.

Now, I wait for the issue of the Live on the beach at Aldeburgh Grimes.

Mike

[knight66]

https://twitter.com/cjgillett/status/401636649437634560

A link here to a great interview with Oliver Knussen and his connections with Britten.

Mike

[Sean]

Hello Mike, great review. I too bought the Britten recording on CD during a phase in the 80s where I got all the major opera sets available at the time. I remember the Penguin review of Lucretia saying it contains some of his most ravishing (in the right way) melodies and indeed it does- the spare scoring suits the style of music perfectly and the exposed (ditto) vocal lines of the 'chorus' are in a special expressive idiom, even if the whole perhaps isn't really convincing, as with all the later operas. And as with Grimes too actually...

A work I must return to soon.

[knight66]

Thanks Sean. You are right to point out the lyrical writing. It is a very beautiful score with melody passed round the singers and audience and yet again I hear the echoes of Strauss in the women's' music.

Mike

[Sean]

There's certainly the career parallel with both composers turning to opera after early successes in orchestral music and song, then the earlier operas perhaps being seen as the best. Actually the emphasis on the earlier Strauss operas is anomalous but the two also wrote 15, or Britten about 15, and a dissolution of closed forms characterizes them both. I can't bring musical similarities to mind right now but I'll find a recording of Lucretia soon as I can.

There's this one from Aldeburgh under Daniels 2001 according to the notes, though I'll probably prefer a smoother studio performance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8xcrCGwmcs&list=PL29CFB3F806F32230