Debauched night on the tiles that makes for a super night at the opera
Albert Herring Buxton International Festival
Two new productions of Britten’s most overtly comic opera have been giving great pleasure this summer: one, which I didn’t see, was directed last month by that irrepressible veteran John Copley at the Grange in Hampshire; a second, directed by Francis Matthews, is currently a hit at the Buxton Festival.
Albert Herring is very much a period piece in its depiction of a provincial English community dominated by a rigid class structure, uneasy attitude to sex and C of E moral assumptions. Because such things no longer prevail, the setting doesn’t take kindly to being radically updated, and even though its deeper message slyly, subversively and scandalously promotes the idea of personal liberation, the humour can seem quaint and a bit prim.
But the key words are “slyly” and “mysteriously”. Virginal and henpecked Albert has a Dionysian night on the tiles – or off the rails – that breaks all the rules and leaves him all the better for surrendering to his instincts.
Eric Crozier’s libretto teasingly refuses to divulge the details of his debauchery, and the one fault of Matthews’s production is his invention of an epicene Satanic tempter in a spiv’s demob suit who silently shadows Albert and lures him to eat of forbidden fruit. Although the precise nature of the seduction is never made clear, this figure is not only a distracting irritant but a spoiler: far more powerful to leave it all to audience imagination.
Otherwise, I have no complaints about a staging set in the Forties that is rich in character and fun – I specially loved the almost orgiastic staging of the bunfight that brings the second act to its climax. Justin Doyle conducts the Northern Chamber Orchestra in a bouncy account of a score that takes its cue from Verdi’s Falstaff.
In the title role, a promising young tenor, Bradley Smith, combines solemn, stolid goofiness with stubborn determination, while Yvonne Howard huffs and puffs to the manor born as his nemesis Lady Billows. Invidious as it is to single anyone else out from the universally excellent supporting cast, I rather fell for Kathryn Rudge’s blonde bombshell of a Nancy, sung with fine relish of her music’s sensuality.
Friends I was with enjoyed themselves as much as I did, but insisted that Britten made this opera 15 minutes too long, with the drag falling in the third act. They might be right.
Until July 22, in repertory with Lucio Silla and Macbeth. Tickets: 01298 72190; buxtonfestival.co.uk