Opera meets circus
WELSH NATIONAL OPERA ARE PUTTING A NEW TWIST ON BENJAMIN BRITTEN’S DEATH IN VENICE, WRITES
WELSH National Opera have teamed up with contemporary circus company NoFit State for a bold new production of Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice.
The production, which plays Birmingham Hippodrome on May 11, will use a range of circus skills to retell the classic tale of writer Gustav von Aschenbach’s descent into a world of fantasy after he becomes infatuated with Tadzio, a young man he meets in Venice.
Based on Thomas Mann’s novella and sung in English with English and Welsh surtitles, Britten’s opera explores creativity, sexuality, ageing, obsession and the tension between reality and imagination. Aerial work and other circus skills blends with Britten’s evocative music to create an innovative version of the compelling tale.
“Death in Venice is a beautiful opera,” says director Olivia Fuchs. “On the face of it, the piece charts the inner struggle and the physical, as well as metaphorical, demise of a writer who has suppressed his sexuality in his search for creativity and beauty. His imagination is parched.” And there is a real depth to the work, Olivia explains.
“For me, the piece is an exploration of the inner dimensions of our lives – our imagination, dreams and creativity – and how they are manifested, expressed and physicalised. “It is all about ‘seeing’. Aschenbach is inspired by the beauty of a young man – he sees, he observes, he imagines, he begins to feel again. After many years he becomes embodied. His sexual urges and his imagination run away with him and he becomes obsessed.”
Britten originally conceived the roles of Tadzio and his family as silent characters to be played by ballet dancers but Olivia was keen to explore their physicality through another means – circus.
“The idea of Tadzio being an aerialist emerged early in my thinking, which then developed into having a group of five circus artists who can play Tadzio and his family, as well as help move the episodic story from scene to scene in surprising and delightful ways. Having seen NoFit State Circus’ work, I thought that a collaboration would be perfect.”
WNO and NFS are both based in Cardiff and have worked together in the past on community shows but this is the first time the two have collaborated on a full-scale touring work. The production features opera singers and circus performers with Aschenbach being sung by tenor Peter Van Hulle in Birmingham and Tadzio being played by circus performer Antony César.
NoFit State guest artistic director Firenza Guidi believes the collaboration will bring a new understanding to Britten’s work.
“For me, circus is the best way to embody the kind of dichotomy in the story: the contradiction between flight and ground, between ethereal and carnal. All the kind of things that a circus performer can do is carnal but at the same time can be ethereal – it’s a vision, something that will evaporate in the next image.
“So the long-buried desires and the inner struggle that go on in Aschenbach is represented not just in the singing but also by the circus performers.”
The collaboration is proving to be both innovative and exciting, says NFS artistic director Tom Rack.
“It’s not just about bringing a bit of circus into the background of the show – Olivia wanted to find physical ways of telling the story and for us to bring our signature style, which is visual, anarchic and raucous, to the production,” he says. For Tom, contemporary circus has a unique way of expressing a story.
“When we are creating stories we are painting pictures, we are creating images that are almost cinematic in scale, that have resonance, have theme, have meaning and have undercurrent in terms of the relationship between the characters, the relationship between the music and the movement and the relationship between the rigs and the character.”
The idea of Tadzio being an aerialist emerged early in my thinking,.
Olivia Fuchs
WNO perform Britten’s Death in Venice at Birmingham Hippodrome on May 11, alongside Mozart’s Così fan tutte on May 10. For more information and tickets see www.birminghamhippodrome.com