Oliver Knussen Sendak operas, Aldeburgh

"Higgelty Piggelty Pop! The Dog has eaten the Mop!". Do dogs eat mops? Does anarchy rule? Oliver Knussen's double bill, Where the Wild Things Are and Higgelty Piggelty Pop! at Snape Maltings started the 2012 Aldeburgh Music Festival in exuberant style.

Knussen's operas are based on the books by Maurice Sendak, which presumably Knussen read with his daughter, Sonya. But Sendak's books themselves spring from primeval sources. Nursery stories aren't lullabies. They're sinister. But children are fascinated. Perhaps when they go to sleep they need to be reassured that the dreams they encounter are just "stories" that they'll wake from. Fantasy stimulates creativity. Knussen's operas are for anyone of any age, who values imagination. Operas like these are good for our artistic (and mental) health. Britten wanted Aldeburgh to stimulate creative growth. Whether Knussen completes new work or not, he makes it possible for others to catch the spark.

In Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are a boy called Max is punished for dressing up as a wolf and escapes to a world of monsters.  Sendak's illustrations tell the story even more than the words do, so Netia Jones's staging uses projections straight from the book. The staging's not literal though, and incorporates the reality of theatre. Figures appear in silhouette and in ordinary clothes, but act and sing in character, so the video projections aren't obscured. The orchestra can be seen clearly, so you can close your eyes and absorb the music, which is strikingly inventive. Four double basses and contrabassoon make the Wild Things roar, but Max (the vivacious Claire Booth) stands up to them. They look fierce but are rather cuddly. A bit like Knussen himself.

There were many children at the matinee I attended (ironically on what would have been Sendak's 84th birthday), all of them attentive and well behaved. I asked two lads (8 and 11) how they felt. "I loved it when they appeared behind the screen" said one, while the other was fascinated by the instrumentation. They seem to have got a lot out of the experience. These are the kind of audiences we need, people who enjoy without prejudgement and respond imaginatively. Even when some children shouted, it added to the atmosphere.

 Higgelty Piggelty Pop!  was more subtle.and communicated on many levels. It starts with a Pig-in-Sandwich Boards (Graeme Danby) offering ham sandwiches to those in the audience too young to appreciate the irony. The sandwiches also serve to keep the kids occupied when Jenny the Sealyham Terrier (Lucy Schaufer) sings a long, sophisticated aria, wondering if there's "More to Life". The projection behind shows the cartoon Jenny with a film of Schaufer's mouth singing. Gradually voice and image begin singing different lines: fascinating, and musically astute. Jenny can't get a job in the Mother Goose World Theatre until she gets "experience" whatever that might be. Whatever the Mother Goose World Theatre may be, for that matter. Logic is the enemy of imagination!  Knussen fills the music wiuth loony cross-references, like bits from Tchaikovsky and Mozart, barbershop quartets, brass bands evoking circuses. all woven into his distinctively intricate multi-layers. Like Birtwistle, Knussen loves mind games and multi levels. (Please see my piece on Oliver Knussen's Devious Nature Puzzles - a double meaning I didn't intend!) The effect is manic, the images anarchic, but the music is elegantly crafted, and played with complete conviction by the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth.

Jenny's transported by a cat (Christopher Lemmings) in a milk float to nurse a baby with a savage, demented glare. At least on the Sendak illustration. The Baby (Susana Andersson) is an adult with a piercing scream. How can Jenny placate this beast? Sendak's images may be pretend Victorian, but these aren't Victorian values. The Baby's Mother (Claire Booth) tells Jenny to let a Lion (Graeme Broadbent) bring the Baby back to her, and so the story ends happily ever after. Or does it? Three surprise "endings" to whip up excitement. It's perfectly in order to laugh and clap as we emerge from the fantasy of the story to the fantasy of the mock toy theatre proscenium. Has Jenny, and have we, found the Mother Goose World Theatre?

This Knussen double bill will be repeated at the Barbican Hall, London in November, with Netia Jones's multimedia presentation. Don't be put off if you can't go with a child. Go with the Child in Yourself, and benefit even more. Netia Jones's Before Life and After comes to Aldeburgh from 20 to 22nd June and moves to the Cheltenham Music Festival thereafter. This is a show built round Britten's Winter Words, Finzi's A Young Man's Exhortation and Tippett's Boyhood's End. James Gilchrist sings. It's a tour de force. Highly recommended - read about the first  London performance HERE. 

Oliver Knussen conducted the Scottish Chamber Orchestra the previous evening in a typically intricate puzzle of a programme. Charles Ives's Washington's Birthday, rather appropriate as Aldeburgh's celebrating Knussen's birthday this year.  Diaphanous textures, exqusitely defined by this excellent orchestra. Very similar orchestration (harp and piano  on concerto) to Alexander Goehr's Marching to Carcassonne (2002 rev 2005) with Peter Serkin, with whom Knussen has been closely connected for many years. Serkin understands the Don Quixotic spirit of the piece, where Knights march into battle but go round in circles, never reaching their goal. The harpist is Serkin's Sancho Panza, the harp's pedal held down so the strings play tautly, like a medieval stringed instrument. Goehr's sense of humour, which Knussen has inherited. Surprise non-endings, as in Higgelty Piggelty Pop! Goehr was roundly applauded, and beamed.

Stravinsky's Movements for piano and Orchestra followed, and three movements from Alban Berg's Lyric Suite, superbly played.  We don't hear the SCO nearly often enough in London (though there's a lot about them on this site, as they are favourites).  Then Geoffrey Norris appeared and presented Knussen with a Critics' Circle award for Outstanding Musician.  "But I didn't finish the piece I was planning" said Knussen. It hardly matters. Quality is better than quantity, and there are many ways of being a true musician.

Full, more formal review soon in Opera Today
Production photos: Eamonn McCabe

Eclectic Aldeburgh Music Festival 2012

The British don't appreciate Aldeburgh. Indeed, many don't appreciate Benjamin Britten's unique place in British music history. Just as the town faces the North Sea, Britten's horizons were European. The Aldeburgh Festival brought Shostakovich to the west, and the Hesse connection brought German interest. To truly understand Britten's artistic nature, appreciate Aldeburgh for what it is. Britten's vision was English, but eclectic, not insular.

What a pity he missed meeting Béla Bartók, who came to Aldeburgh in 1923, in a concert organized by a teacher in a girls' school. In those days, it wasn't unusual for artists to circulate outside big cities. When I was transcribing Elizabeth Schumann's papers she was organizing pianists and concerts in tiny, out of the way places in England to supplement on her visits to England.  Béla Bartók's visit to Aldeburgh is explored in a talk on 22/6. His music features throughout the festival including three important recitals by the Keller Quartet, who specialize in modern Hungarian composers, and an unmissable recital with Dezső Ránki on 15/6. He's playing late Liszt, Bartók, Hadyn and a premiere by Barnabas Dukay.

Three recitals by Miklós Perényi, a recital and a masterclass with Menachem Pressler, two concerts by Peter Serkin, one with Gabriela Montero and Alfred Brendel, talking about Liszt and illustrating with piano. And of course Pierre-Laurent Aimard himself, on his own and with Matthias Goerne. The Arditti Quartet and Helmut Lachermann, whose music also comes under the spotlight. Lachenmann will be there himself and Ensemble Modern, the great European ensemble who rarely grace our shores. Seriously important figures, attracted to a small seaside town by Aimard and Aldeburgh's reputation.

Oliver Knussen's Aldeburgh connections are impeccable, too. He's a former director of the Festival and still a major presence, and lives up the road! Knussen's Where the Wild Things Are and Higgelty Piggelty Pop! will be this year's opera offerings. They were inspired by the tales of Maurice Sendak, so reflect Knussen's quirky imagination. He read the stories to his daughter, "the Muse of Higgelty Pigglety Pop!". The operas are coming to the Barbican later in the year, semi straged by Netia Jones. Excellent cast, including Claire Booth, Susan Bickley, Rebecca Bottone and others. These are more than "children's operas" (a concept Britten would have loved)  and will remind us how important Knussen has been for music in this country.

Knussen's British but spent his formative years in the US. So it's significant that he's included in his keynote concert Charles Ives' Washington's Birthday as well as a new work of his own.  A rare chance to hear Charles Ives' uncompleted Universe Symphony on 24/6. This is its European premiere, and will be conducted by James Sinclair, Ives scholar, "using every corner of Snape Maltings its airy acoustics and unique idyllic natural surrounds as a single vast performance space".  Interesting to compare the ideas with John Cage Musicircus, the day before, this time with Exaudi.  Every Cage musicircus is different - there's one on March 3 at the ENO, by Cage's intimates.

Perhaps the last thing Britten wanted was to turn Aldeburgh into a theme park for his music, attracting day trippers and English Defence Leaguers after "The Britten/Britain Experience". He'd be rolling in his grave to think of himself and the ethos he loved rebranded in that way. Instead, Aldeburgh honours Britten by reecognizing what he really stood for, which is artitsic integrity and creative growth. Aldeburgh is a Festival for and by musicians.

Real Britten fans know his music well enough to cope with things like Before Life and After, Netia Jones's dramatizations of Britten, Finzi and Tippett with James Gilchrist as soloist. When this was on at Kings Place in 2010, it was excellent, and should be even better at Aldeburgh.  Britten's music doesn't need to overwhelm the Festival, for his ideas pervade the whole Festival, encompassing music, walks, community events, visual arts, early and modern music, film and achitecture. Booking starts this week. Complete brochure here.
Please look at the many things I've written about Aldeburgh in past years, and about the various composers featured. Also tips on food and shopping!

photo: William M Connolley