Welsh Nationwide Opera’s collaboration with NoFitState circus in Benjamin Britten’s closing opera has created a surprising spectacle. Based mostly on Thomas Mann’s novella, the work makes enormous calls for on the tenor singing the function of Gustav von Aschenbach – heroically sung right here by Mark Le Brocq – but that is an opera that stands or falls on the casting of the beauteous imaginative and prescient who’s Tadzio. He’s the Polish boy held in more and more obsessive thrall by Aschenbach, looking for blessed launch from the ache of author’s block. Tadzio is a non-speaking function usually given to a dancer, however director Olivia Fuchs right here introduces a complete new spatial dimension within the type of the Belgian aerialist Antony César. It’s certainly his supreme grace and athleticism that holds the entire viewers in his thrall.
Taking the concept a step additional, Fuchs makes Tadzio’s complete Polish household acrobats – Diana Salles the tightrope and aerialist mom – and there are a number of interventions that animate what are typically seen because the longueurs of Britten’s rating. The sequences of aerial and circus expertise deliver an distinct aspect of Marcel Carné’s movie Les Enfants du Paradis. This, along with the allusions to angels of sunshine, is a counterbalance to the seven roles sung by baritone Roderick Williams, completely different manifestations of a single determine whose underlying sinister nature – his previous gondolier the harbinger of loss of life – make him extra Aschenbach’s nemesis than alter ego. Williams’ characterisations are sensible and agile, some extra robustly projected vocally than others.
Designer Nicola Turner’s setting is principally monochromatic, a black field with video spreading slowly lapping water in evocative cyclorama footage on the rear wall. Friends on the Lido’s Grand Resort des Bains are all Edwardian magnificence in white; the populace put on darkish gray, towards which white wings and later Venetian masks stand out. The darkish, crepuscular temper symbolising Aschenbach’s determined want for the returning gentle of inspiration additionally suggests the insidious onset of cholera. Based mostly once more on Mann’s expertise of the 1911 epidemic in Venice, its risk feels all too actual within the wake of Covid.
Vivid color comes with Alexander Probability’s golden Apollo, presiding over the Olympian video games which immediate Aschenbach’s realisation that he loves Tadzio, after which competing with Williams’ scarlet-suited Dionysius – magnificence versus ardour – for the soul of the sleeping author. There’s much less eroticism on this dream than within the Tadzio’s closing combative pas de deux with Riccardo Saggese’s Jaschiu, who doubles because the Polish governess. Tadzio’s head will not be pressured into the sand as Britten directed however, in ceding to his opponent’s superior energy, raises his lips to him in a kiss. That is the second of Aschenbach’s demise.
A robust presence all through, Le Brocq conveys in each deeply sympathetic voice and in physique language Aschenbach’s anguish. Leo Hussain conducts with a certain hand, the WNO refrain is terrific as are the various cameo roles, the WNO orchestra relishing the textures, with scintillating percussion enjoying, wind strains and periodic brass resonance. The temporary closing threnody spells heartbreak, but additionally in the end serves to bolster the suspicion that the circus aspect– thrilling as it’s – has denied Britten’s fantastic music its primacy. It’s not an insignificant reservation in an in any other case charming staging.
At Venue Cymru, Llandudno on 13 March and touring till 11 Might.
