Ian Bostridge (Aschenbach at the ENO from next week in Britten's Death in Venice) has written the most fascinating and insightful article on Britten's last opera in today's Guardian (18 May). This just increases one's anticipation to see his debut in one of the great operatic roles of the last third of the 20th century next week. He considers it to be Britten's greatest opera. This commitment should bring something really special to the Coliseum. Edward Gardner has also written enticingly about the challenge of conducting the opera this week. I hope ENO have a great success with the opera, and establish it firmly in the canon, as they did in the sixties with Gloriana.

Thanks for the link but I can't see anything on line about it. A good interview with Ed Gardner is in todays Indi

I really can't for next Thursday. The score is fabulous, I can't stop playing the CD and I really love Miss Warner's work

ENO needs some good fortune, lets hope this follows on the success of Satyagrapha

The article, 'Venetian Blind Spot', is on:

http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/stor...2082080,00.html

Hope this works. If not, just go to Guardian Online and then Classical in the Arts/Music section.

It doesn't seem to work, but if you type the web site in up to the word classical (no forward slash after classical) it comes up as the first item.

Oh my god! This has to be one of my great nights at the opera. First of all let me say how refreshing to see a production (especially at ENO) that sets the work in the correct period, involves no unwanted actors or supernumeraries doing "significant" things and never tries to impose the director's ego onto the work yet remains vibrant, fresh, riveting and alive.
Ian Bostridge gives one of the defining performances of his career (up there with his Quint) in a portrayal which is totally different from Pears yet never unfaithful to the text and music. His singing is beautiful, dramatically alert and, as always with this singer, totally tuned to the nuances of the text. Peter Coleman Wright as the multiple baritone part gives a tour de force and the production vividly points up the connections with the messenger of death, Charon etc. Iestyn Davies sings the Voice of Apollo sublimely. The Tadzio (sorry forgotten his name) treads the fine line of this part perfectly and makes the character both believable and profoundly moving.
The rest of the huge cast all contribute vividly to the success of the opera.
The production is a triumph for Deborah Warner and her team. Tom Pye's simple and stunningly beautiful set aided by Jean Kalman (giving one of the best lighting designs I have seen anywhere) make the perfect environment for this opera. The way the lighting captures the suffocating beauty of Venice and later the sense of encroaching dread and disease is nothing short of jaw-dropping.
I have always found the last scenes to be sad but not moving. However in this production Aschenbach's fall from grace is charted so sensitively that is almost unbearably wrenching. The final images are breathtaking and I am sure I was not the only member of the audience viewing the end of the opera through a veil of tears.
I would say to anyone who loves opera or music theatre - GO AND SEE THIS PRODUCTION. It is an antidote to all the crass opera productions you have had to sit through but, more importantly, it is the sort of production that succeeds so triumphantly that you will remember it long after the aberrations of other directors etc have faded from memory.

Sebastian

I'm going on Thursday, buoyed up by this review. Many thanks.

I thought the Colin Graham production that I saw at the ROH some years ago was tacky and surprisingly tasteless, particularly given Graham's links with the composer, and since then I've preferred the purity of a 'sound only' experience of this magnificent opera. So I can't wait to see how this new production deals with the ticklish challenges it presents to a director. Having Ian Bostridge as Aschenbach will be the icing on the cake.

I'll report back on Friday.

Job

I agree with Sebastian on many points, its an amazing night at the theatre. Haunting beyond belief. It’s quite a while since I have read the book and seen the film but I don’t recall this level of depression from reading/seeing it. Although depressing in all the right ways you want a piece of theatre to be.

I’ve never seen the opera staged before but I think I wanted Peter Coleman Wright’s role to be more emphasised towards the figure of Charon. It didn’t come across that strongly. Hey hum.

Tom Pye’s projection’s and design are amazing. A perfect blend and never too heavy handed or intrusive. If only everything could be this well designed. My only criticism of the production is it was a little prop/furniture heavy for my liking.

Bostridge was astounding and so was the orchestra and chorus. Lets hope Ed Gardner is on a roll.

The one element that impressed the greatest was Kim Brandstrup’s choreography. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen his work before but I will definitely look out for it now.

I didn't find it depressing. Certainly more moving than any other version I've seen or heard but that's not quite the same. Depressed is how I felt after sitting through a musically near perfect "Pelleas" at the ROH which was saddled with a grotesquely perverse anti-production For me it was judged pretty much right. Any more and it could have been quite unsubtle Don't forget Jean Kalman's superb lighting which so perfectly complemented the set and the opera Absolutely agree. I always dread choreographic sections in opera - Think how many ghastly Aida ballets you have sat through! This was perfect because it grew naturally out of the action but was beautiful to watch as well.

Sebastian

Saw the last night of Pelleas on Wednesday and the second night of Death in Venice on Saturday, two profound musical experiences within a few days. One unexpected juxtaposition. There is of course the famous scene in Pelleas when Yniold loses his ball under a rock, a scene brilliantly sung and acted by Tom Norrington. In one of the scenes in Death on Venice Tadzio mislaid a ball on the beach and Aschenbach returned it to him. (Was there a sub-conscious echo of Pelleas by Deborah Warner, the director?)

Pelleas would have been better performed in concert version, so dull was the production. How did Salzburg ever allow such inadequacies on stage? But musically it was VERY fine. Not so fine was the appalling coughing of the audience, so much so that at one stage, Rattle turned round between scenes and appealed for restraint. The way in which he did so was a model of courtesy and wit, saying that the acoustics were so good that unfortunately 'we' (the performers) can hear 'you' (the audience) even better than 'you' can hear 'us'. This was received with much applause. From then on things were fine. Why can't audiences behave better (the point of another thread)?

Death in Venice was a profoundly serious production, brilliantly lit, costumed, peformed and designed. It was overall an absolute tour-de-force. Many productions of Death in Venice have foundered on too old a Tadzio; this to a certain extent suffered from the opposite, too young an Aschenbach. It is churlish to 'complain' when Ian Bostridge performed so magnificently, and he will have the role to himself now for twenty years as the Philip Langridge/Robert Tear generation retire from the field, but he did look like a gap student with a moustache. Shall listen in on Radio 3 on June 30 when the production is broadcast. Some of the silhouettes were heart rending, and the ending among the most moving things Britten ever did (replicated of course in the Serenissima movement of his 3rd String Quartet.) I am sure it is only the subject matter, which some find unsettling, that prevents Death in Venice being appreciated for the towering masterpiece it is, Britten's 'Opus 131'.

As an after thought, one of the things that is staying with me is the excellent idea clothing of both Tadzio and Apollo in the same dress. When Apollo first entered it struck me as a genius idea and it worked so well.

I saw this last night and am left reeling by the brilliance of this faultless, mesmerising production. One of the greatest nights I've had in a theatre.

No need to 'review' it, because others have put it so well. Suffice it to say that it has completely exorcised my concerns (conjured on seeing the Colin Graham production at the ROH) that this is a sound opera, not one for the stage. Jean Kalman's lighting will stay with me forever, as will Deborah Warner's stunning stage compositions with their astute use of lateral crowd movement. As for Ian Bostridge... well, Aschenbach's decline was astonishingly well delineated. A complete creation.

Bravo to everyone at ENO for this masterly production.

Job

There seems to be universal praise for this production and cast. A couple of critics criticised Bostridge's acting and the Stage (whose "High art" critics remain an outpost of strident ignorance) criticised a "lack of colour" in his voice which made me wonder if they'd heard the same performance I heard. Especially as several (much more respected critics in the past have criticised Bostridge for overcolouring and overdramatising vocally.

Sebastian