Composer: Benjamin Britten
Libretto: Eric Crozier
Conductor: Garry Walker
Director: Giles Havergal (revived by Elaine Tyler-Hall)
Opera North has always done well by Albert Herring: the 2002 production was a delight, but Giles Havergal’s 2013 production, here revived by Elaine Tyler-Hall, seems like the perfect way to do the opera. Of course, you have to have a facility like the Howard Assembly Room!
Britten’s opera, to Eric Crozier’s clever libretto, is a gentle satire on village life and class consciousness, a celebration of the outsider (Britten knew all about that) and a sort of coming of age story. Loxford needs to choose this year’s May Queen and a group of village notables, with the formidable Lady Billows in charge, listens to the evidence brought by her housekeeper, Florence Pike, and decides that none is suitable. This is 1947 and standards of morality – at least on the surface – are high.
So an unlikely choice is made: to have a May King. Albert Herring, the over-mothered greengrocer’s boy, is chosen. Now Albert has been embarrassed and tempted by the goings on of Sid from the butcher’s and Nancy from the bakery and, when they spike his drink at the ceremony, he breaks out, goes missing overnight and does…what? We are never told, but the end of the opera puts the future firmly in the hands of the Sids and Nancies of this world rather than Mrs. Herring and Lady Billows.
How does this charmingly subversive tale fit so snugly in the Howard Assembly Room? The production is staged down the length of the hall, three rows of seats at each side with the small orchestra at the stage end. This gives an intimacy to the whole thing and you feel at times like a citizen of Loxford. The scenes with the local worthies are full of ensembles of differing opinions, whether formally fuguing or informally disputing, and it’s uncommonly involving to have Superintendent Budd or the Rev. Mr. Gedge address you with (apparently) every attempt to win your support. Aside from this Albert’s isolation is emphasised by his separateness in a wide open space.
All this would count for nothing if the singers were not up to the mark as singers and actors, but there is not a weak link in a terrific ensemble. Judith Howarth, stepping into the considerable shoes of Dame Josephine Barstow who took the role in 2013, unleashes wave after wave of domineering imperiousness; if she doesn’t have quite the presence of Barstow, who does? At the other extreme Dafydd Jones is a delight as Albert, giving vent to lyrical outbursts in contrast to his down-trodden manner and ending up as gleeful as he deserves.
The other members of the self-appointed (or, rather, Billows-appointed) committee are perfectly differentiated: Heather Shipp as Florence Pike, Lady Billows’ representative on earth, with a baleful stare for lesser mortals; Amy Freston, fluttering like mad as Miss Wordsworth, the school mistress; William Dazeley, the dithering vicar with a (very dignified) eye for Miss Wordsworth; Paul Nilon, a stalwart Mayor Upfold; and Richard Mosley-Evans, bluff and resolute as Police Superintendent Budd.
If this wasn’t enough of a list of character parts, there are Claire Pascoe, mithering herself to death as Mrs. Herring, and Dominic Sedgwick and Katie Bray, perfect as the liberated couple – and the children are huge fun, too.
Then there is one more big reason why this staging fits the opera perfectly: the orchestra is above ground and Britten gives them plenty to do, in the orchestral interludes that separate the scenes, but also in the witty, occasionally surreal accompaniment to the singers. All the wind instruments are represented by a single instrumentalist, as is percussion, and it’s no reflection on the others to single out Oliver Casanovas Nuevo, notably on bass clarinet, Kristina Yumerska on horn and Mark Wagstaff on percussion.
Garry Walker somehow holds the ensemble together, with the aid of four television screens, Leslie Travers keeps the setting simple (fruit and veg crates easily transformed). but lavishes due care on some delightful period costumes, and Elaine Tyler-Hall keeps the action bubbling, with notables alternately forming fours or shooting off at all angles and Sid apparently auditioning for the Pirate King!
Runs on certain dates until 2nd March 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
Joyous evening!
