I saw Britten's late masterpiece Death in Venice at Garsington Opera on Saturday.
Garsington has been evicted from the eponymous manor house and is now held at Getty's place, Wormsley. It is everything you would expect from the English country estate of one of the world's hyper-rich. An exquisite house in countless acres, only 45 minutes from London but rolling hills as far as the eye can see. We parked in a field where a polite young man loaded up a golf buggy with our picnic and table and chairs and drove our party of four over to the lake. We set up stall under the disdainful, collective eye of a herd of deer. There is a cricket pitch that is widely held to be the most beautiful in the country. The house has one of the finest private libraries in the world, containing Anne Boleyn's psalter and a 7th century document laying claim to be the oldest English manuscript. Everything is disgustingly restrained and elegant. It was enough to turn me into an anarchist.
The outstanding reviews of the performance suggested that the opera would match the setting. The music is sublime. It was conducted by Steuart Bedford who conducted the first ever performance of Death in Venice over forty years ago. The set was lovely. The singing and orchestra were faultless. And yet it was risible.
Gustav von Aschenbach, a celebrated author of advancing years, visits Venice in a bid to lift his writer's block. He stays at a hotel on the Lido where he is besotted with a young Polish boy, Tadzio. He spies on him cavorting on the beach with other young men and his young sisters. Lust turns to love, he follows Tadzio around Venice obsessively and refuses to leave even when the city is gripped by cholera, to which Aschenbach finally succumbs.
Clearly homosexuality - or at least Aschenbach's struggle with his own sexuality - is a central theme of the work. As is paedophilia. Tadzio is a boy, and very clearly so in this production where, in the rare moments he was clothed, he was dressed in a sailor suit. This is a tricky theme, particularly so in these times of Operation Yewtree. And it was probably not best addressed by the massive amount of campness, buggery and frotting that filled much of a production that looked like it had been guest directed by Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served?
There were lots of sailors playing with each other. The male dancers were moonlighting Abercrombie and Fitch models with perfect pecs and biceps, their lunchboxes barely concealed under the most modest amount of spandex as they flicked towels at each other's arses. Tadzio's own arse (distractingly round and fleshy, rather like a girl's) found itself stripped off and fondled by said dancers. For no apparent reason. Maybe the obsession with him belonged to the director rather than Aschenbach.
"Is it really necessary to strip Tadzio naked?"
"Yes, yes, it's all part of the ancient Greek theme of the work."
"Why is he having his buttocks fondled?"
"There must be fondling. Lots of fondling. It's an allegory."
By the end of the performance a plainly uncomfortable audience was treated to simulated oral and anal sex. The exquisite music was somewhat overshaddowed by the vigorous bumming of Tadzio that accompanied it.
The Director wasn't Mr Humphries, he was Paul Curran. He's incredibly talented and famous and has directed acclaimed productions all over the world. God knows what he was doing coming up with this 1970s pastiche. I'm all up for experimental opera. My guests were trendy kiwis who are heavily into cutting edge music. None of us was particularly offended by this, we just thought it an overwhelming distraction from an otherwise wonderful production.
A recent Covent Garden production of William Tell that featured a woman being gang raped on stage received boos from the audience and ridicule in the press. I can't quite see how this has escaped a similar fate. The combination of Britten and Bedford is breathtaking, but even they couldn't polish this particular turd.
Garsington has been evicted from the eponymous manor house and is now held at Getty's place, Wormsley. It is everything you would expect from the English country estate of one of the world's hyper-rich. An exquisite house in countless acres, only 45 minutes from London but rolling hills as far as the eye can see. We parked in a field where a polite young man loaded up a golf buggy with our picnic and table and chairs and drove our party of four over to the lake. We set up stall under the disdainful, collective eye of a herd of deer. There is a cricket pitch that is widely held to be the most beautiful in the country. The house has one of the finest private libraries in the world, containing Anne Boleyn's psalter and a 7th century document laying claim to be the oldest English manuscript. Everything is disgustingly restrained and elegant. It was enough to turn me into an anarchist.
The outstanding reviews of the performance suggested that the opera would match the setting. The music is sublime. It was conducted by Steuart Bedford who conducted the first ever performance of Death in Venice over forty years ago. The set was lovely. The singing and orchestra were faultless. And yet it was risible.
Gustav von Aschenbach, a celebrated author of advancing years, visits Venice in a bid to lift his writer's block. He stays at a hotel on the Lido where he is besotted with a young Polish boy, Tadzio. He spies on him cavorting on the beach with other young men and his young sisters. Lust turns to love, he follows Tadzio around Venice obsessively and refuses to leave even when the city is gripped by cholera, to which Aschenbach finally succumbs.
Clearly homosexuality - or at least Aschenbach's struggle with his own sexuality - is a central theme of the work. As is paedophilia. Tadzio is a boy, and very clearly so in this production where, in the rare moments he was clothed, he was dressed in a sailor suit. This is a tricky theme, particularly so in these times of Operation Yewtree. And it was probably not best addressed by the massive amount of campness, buggery and frotting that filled much of a production that looked like it had been guest directed by Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served?
There were lots of sailors playing with each other. The male dancers were moonlighting Abercrombie and Fitch models with perfect pecs and biceps, their lunchboxes barely concealed under the most modest amount of spandex as they flicked towels at each other's arses. Tadzio's own arse (distractingly round and fleshy, rather like a girl's) found itself stripped off and fondled by said dancers. For no apparent reason. Maybe the obsession with him belonged to the director rather than Aschenbach.
"Is it really necessary to strip Tadzio naked?"
"Yes, yes, it's all part of the ancient Greek theme of the work."
"Why is he having his buttocks fondled?"
"There must be fondling. Lots of fondling. It's an allegory."
By the end of the performance a plainly uncomfortable audience was treated to simulated oral and anal sex. The exquisite music was somewhat overshaddowed by the vigorous bumming of Tadzio that accompanied it.
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The Director wasn't Mr Humphries, he was Paul Curran. He's incredibly talented and famous and has directed acclaimed productions all over the world. God knows what he was doing coming up with this 1970s pastiche. I'm all up for experimental opera. My guests were trendy kiwis who are heavily into cutting edge music. None of us was particularly offended by this, we just thought it an overwhelming distraction from an otherwise wonderful production.
A recent Covent Garden production of William Tell that featured a woman being gang raped on stage received boos from the audience and ridicule in the press. I can't quite see how this has escaped a similar fate. The combination of Britten and Bedford is breathtaking, but even they couldn't polish this particular turd.
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