This is a difficult one for me. A superb production - excellent sets (by Leslie Travers); superb singing from everybody - chorus and soloists alike (although Roderick Williams in the title role had difficulties being heard in the louder passages; didn't half make up for it in Billy's final soliloquy, though!); splendid conducting from Gary Walker (who kept the momentum up throughout without forcing the pace); and terrific playing from the ON orchestra (with the occasional exception of the trumpets who had occasional - but very noticeable - flaws of both intonation and ensemble: the thirty-odd chords scene in Act Two really suffered as a result - beautifully staged as it was by director Orpha Phelan) - and some of Britten's very best Music. It is remarkable how scrupulously he mines his resources, getting jaw-dropping new sounds from "traditional" "Tonal" (with and without the inverted commas) mixtures.
But ... there is much in this work that (for reasons I can't quite put my finger on) I find as repellent as I do engrossing; and sometimes the same Music can do both at the same time in a way that makes me feel quite queasy. The claustrophobic atmosphere of much of the first half of Act One (the original Act One, I suppose) perfectly encapsulates the closed, brutal, sado-eroticism of the ship's community - exactly right, but nasty: fascinatingly repugnant. (I feel a similar queasiness in The Turn of the Screw, though ... so it's not just that community .... ) And much of the text doesn't work (for me) aside from the Music - the action sort of stalls in the second half of Act One (the original Act Two?) from Claggart's monologue - there's a sort of Todd Slaughter unintended (?) humour in this melodrama - and as an insight into Claggart's psyche, I find it inadequate (the Music, too, doesn't seem to "fit" with what we've been hearing up to that point, too) and "hammy". And the decision to cut Vere's "rallying the troops" from the original Act One leaves a character whose timid behaviour left me wondering just why the crew hold him in such affection. And ONE punch from Billy kills Claggart???!!! (This production made Billy's physical strength clear, with a wrestling scene - but Claggart's a big guy; Billy needs to be holding something, or Claggart needs to strike his head on something as he falls. As it is, it looked a bit comical.)
And yet, and yet, and yet ... for all my frustration with the texts, the overall achievement of the thing overcame them at the last ... just.
The grand Theatre in Leeds was about half-full, with only about a third of the seats near me taken. This didn't prevent the largest man in the building from sitting exactly in front of me - had there been more seats sold, I would have had to have sat at an angle of 90degrees to see around him. Fortunately, I was able to move to another seat where I had a direct sightline to the stage. Not that that was the end of my "connection" with the chap - just before Claggart's soliloquy, the "MacDonald's Whistle" was clearly heard - the big man's Mobile ringtone!!! AND the enormous twonk actually booed Alistair Miles [Claggart] at his curtain-call as if he were at a flippin' PANTOMIME!!! I arsks yer ... but there's no reply!
But ... there is much in this work that (for reasons I can't quite put my finger on) I find as repellent as I do engrossing; and sometimes the same Music can do both at the same time in a way that makes me feel quite queasy. The claustrophobic atmosphere of much of the first half of Act One (the original Act One, I suppose) perfectly encapsulates the closed, brutal, sado-eroticism of the ship's community - exactly right, but nasty: fascinatingly repugnant. (I feel a similar queasiness in The Turn of the Screw, though ... so it's not just that community .... ) And much of the text doesn't work (for me) aside from the Music - the action sort of stalls in the second half of Act One (the original Act Two?) from Claggart's monologue - there's a sort of Todd Slaughter unintended (?) humour in this melodrama - and as an insight into Claggart's psyche, I find it inadequate (the Music, too, doesn't seem to "fit" with what we've been hearing up to that point, too) and "hammy". And the decision to cut Vere's "rallying the troops" from the original Act One leaves a character whose timid behaviour left me wondering just why the crew hold him in such affection. And ONE punch from Billy kills Claggart???!!! (This production made Billy's physical strength clear, with a wrestling scene - but Claggart's a big guy; Billy needs to be holding something, or Claggart needs to strike his head on something as he falls. As it is, it looked a bit comical.)
And yet, and yet, and yet ... for all my frustration with the texts, the overall achievement of the thing overcame them at the last ... just.
The grand Theatre in Leeds was about half-full, with only about a third of the seats near me taken. This didn't prevent the largest man in the building from sitting exactly in front of me - had there been more seats sold, I would have had to have sat at an angle of 90degrees to see around him. Fortunately, I was able to move to another seat where I had a direct sightline to the stage. Not that that was the end of my "connection" with the chap - just before Claggart's soliloquy, the "MacDonald's Whistle" was clearly heard - the big man's Mobile ringtone!!! AND the enormous twonk actually booed Alistair Miles [Claggart] at his curtain-call as if he were at a flippin' PANTOMIME!!! I arsks yer ... but there's no reply!
Yes, I suppose it must depend on where the blow lands - and the health and fitness of the blowee; but Claggart's a big strong boy ...
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