Britten's Endgame Bridcut

Currently online on BBC TV4, Britten's Endgame, John Bridcut's film about Britten's last years and last works. Recommended - it's a sensitive and sensible account, much better than most of the oppportunist stuff that's flooded the market this centenary year. Britten's life is so meticulously documented that there isn't much "new" material to use. Hence the sensationalist marketing on non-facts like the idea that Britten was killed by syphilis. Britten was poorly all his life, as this film re-confirms. He was debililitated by anxiety, sometimes vomiting before key events. As one of his associates says in the film, he was so used to being ill that he programmed illnesses into his schedule. Perhaps he was hypochondriac, but more likely the illnesses related to creative crises. Paul Kildea cites Britten's illness in America as evidence of the onset of VD. On the other hand, America was a traumatic period for the composer, resolved by his return to Britain and by Peter Grimes.

Bridcut takes us to Venice, a city where artists have dreamed for centuries. Aschenbach goes searching for change, and glimpses extraordinary, troubling beauty. Some critics sitll condemn Death in Venice, perhaps because it's not easy listening. But that's exactly why it's such a powerful work. As Bridcut shows, Britten was a driven man, under desperate pressure to complete the work. Peter Pears called it "an evil work". The stress might have contributed to Britten's heart condition and stroke, but Pears might have understood .how much it revealed about Britten's innermost dilemmas. For me Death in Venice is the closest Britten comes to  explaining himself, as man and as artist. Tadzio represents a golden ideal. He's seen as an incarnation of Apollo, an eternal inspiration for enlightenment, growth and art. Aschenbach was an intellectual, classically educated and straight. But Tadzio transforms his soul. He can't possess the boy: it might even spoil the dream. Britten was prepared to sacrifice his health to give the opera life.

The current fashion for interpreting Britten through his sexuality is trite, and probably homophobic. Bridcut shows the interview in which David Hemmings says Britten didn't overstep the mark. Throughout his entire career, Britten protests the destruction of innocence. If Tadzio had responded, would Aschenbach run a mile? Ironically, the dancer who played the original Tadzio may have been involved with Peter Pears who was far more omnivorous than the uptight Britten. Myfanwy Piper suggested that the dancers perform naked in authentic Greek fashion. Britten demurred.

Many who knew Britten personally are still active today. Bridcut shows clips from an interview with Janet Baker, for whom Britten wrote Phaedra, an even more intense work of thwarted lust, punished by death. He also shows James Bowman who created the Voice of Apollo, and Michael Berkeley, a true insider and a composer in his own right. Bridcut is far less successful with other "modern" material. Why Joe Phibbs and Mark Anthony Turnage instead of Oliver Knussen or even Harrison Birtwistle? Both of the latter were shaped by Britten for better or worse. there is no "Britten School".  He was unique. He didn't teach but created the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Aldeburgh Festival so that other musicians could find their own way.

There is a battle raging over Britten's legacy. Bridcut stresses the disregard Berio and some of the avant garde had for Britten (and Shostakovich) as if somehow that would make him more mainstream and marketable, by default. But the situation is far more complex. At Darmstadt battles raged between Nono, Berio and Hans Werner Henze, who worshipped Britten and modelled himself upon him. Britten's music is infinitely more innovative than he gets credit for, which is why he is also hated by many in retrogressive "British Music" circles.  There are far too many who would castrate Britten and reinterpret him as bland and conventional. Hence the popularity of one-dimensional, superficial opera productions. Tom Sutcliffe's film, Britten : a Failure is so venomous that it's shown on youtube, not distributed theough mainstream chanels. Those who think Britten isn't trendy enough should reflect on what British music would be like if it wasn't for Britten,. Unfortunately too many people swallow the myth that music has to follow a strict divide between tonality and atonality, modern and anti-modern. Real artists, like Britten, are doggedly individual and follow their own vision, even if it kills them. Remember Aschenbach, and Death in Venice!

photo : Nino Barbieri

Dancing Barbican Britten Phaedra Richard Alston Dance Company

Many, many thanks to the Barbican Centre for commissioning Britten's Phaedra choreographed by Richard Alston Dance Company at the Barbican Theatre. Of the numerous Britten homages this centenary year, this is one of the most inventive. Absolutely, it makes sense to dance Britten, to find new ways into his music through physical, non-verbal expression.The worlds of dance and music don't mesh nearly as often as they should. so this was stimulating for everyone, though it was by far a better dance performance than a musical experience. But Richard Alston's danced Phaedra is something that will last, long after this centenary year has passed.

Britten's Phaedra was made to be moved to. Maze-like, recurring patterns, mirror images. The orchestration is bizarre. It's scored for percussion and harpsichord, with small string ensemble and soprano, Its textures are stark and stylized, with the directness of Greek or Roman art: no fancy background decoration. Percussion and harpsichord? The timpani and metallic instruments add a raw edge, militaristic perhaps, or maybe ceremonial. Phaedra, after all, is a queen and she takes her regal responsibilities seriously. Britten's cycle feels like state treason, (which of course it is). Against the grim percussion, the harpsichord struggles, the thinness of its tone perfectly portrays Phaedra's vulnerability. Harpsichords are percussion instruments too, and Britten makes no pretence at writing anything harmonic or baroque.

Britten's nine songs evolve like tableaux, each a stage in Phaedra's journey from her wedding day to her death. Phaedra's feelings are not love, but a curse. "I faced my flaming executioner Aprodite, my mother's murderer". Phaedra's mother was Pasiphaë, who slept with the bull and died giving birth to The Minotaur.  Kinky. Britten sets the vocal part in a combination of long, soaring arcs and short staccato interspersed with tense silence. "I could not breath or speak", she sings , describing the compulsion that overwhelms her. She rasps, "Love. Love. Love" heavy and hollow like ostinato, against wildly turbulent, twisting discords, marked by high, screaming strings. "Alone" she suddenly shouts : no adornment, no softening. Indeed, by this stage words are bursting out almost randomly, without any attempt to civilize feelings into conventional form.

"Death to the unhappy is no catastrophe" she intones. At last the strings rise in a sort of elegaic anthem, almost recognizably melodic, but quickly surge into a whirring, rushing torrent. "Chills already dark along by boiling veins" Phaedra faces death heroically. In the end, a solo cello plays a sweet, lyrical passage : Phaedra is no more.

The Britten Sinfonia were shrouded in darkness: an  atmospheric touch. The music seemed to materialize out of nowhere, like the mysterious workings of Fate that have cursed Phaedra.  The dancers of the Richard Alston Dance Company appeared in strict formation: disciplined, unsentimental, like a Greek chorus. Costumes (Fotini Dimou) glowed scarlet like blood, purple like Phoenician royal. Hippolytus (Ihsaan de Banya) dances among his friends. He's magnificent - so muscular, so lithe, so physical. Phaedra (Allison Cook) is smitten. Because the music moves in tableaux, there are opportunities for different ensembles. Pekka Kuuisto's violin was particularly evocative, suggesting sensual, but sinister curves. Kuuisto's strong, charismatic personality makes an impact even when he's in the background. The dancers weaved languidly when he played, then snapped into fierce angular stances, as stylized and unyielding as the music itself. Alston also made more of the role of Theseus (James Muller) and Oenone (Nancy Nerantzi), fleshing out the drama as counterparts to Phaedra and Hippolytus.

Cook isn't a singer of the calibre of Janet Baker or Sarah Connolly, but she moves well.. Simon Keenlyside, an athlete and dance devotee, used to specialize in singing with dancers, an art which is quite different from just singing. He moved in sympathy with the dancers, without affecting his singing.  Cook projected impressively, and made the part convincing.

The Barbican Centre also commisioned choreography for Britten's Sechs Hölderin Lieder. Dance is episoidic by nature, so songs lend themselves well to small scale scenas. The dancing was pleasant enough but these songs are far too condensed and complex to translate into movement. Their rhythmic pulse also compromises the piano line and the singing. RobinTritschler and Christopher Glynn needed to be more flexible and fluid, especially since the dancers were so lyrical.

Richard Alston's choreography of Illuminations was first created for Aldeburgh in 1994, titled "Rumours, Visions". (a quote from the final song Départ), together with Alston's Lachyrmae, which opened the evening at the Barbican.  In Illuminations, Alston also creates protagonists Rimbaud (Liam Riddick) and Verlaine (Nathan Goodman) and the muse, in Being Beautous, was Elly Braund.  These characters don't, strictly speaking, appear in the text, but give a danced performance dramatic context.  Rimbaud and Verlaine had a torrid affair which shook provincial society. They escaped to London, then the most modern, cosmopolitan city in the world. Rimbaud was fascinated by the mechanical processes of city life. Dance brings out the subtle recurring patterns in the music, often obscured by the sheer brilliance of virtuoso performance. But therein lies the contradiction of interpreting a piece through a different medium. If the singing is too good, or too idiomatic, it draws attention away from the dance. Tritschler's voice is low for the piece, with a tendency to sing under the note, struggling at the top. Les Illuminations needs a soprano, or a very specific kind of high "Britten tenor" to bring out the surreal craziness in the piece. It also didn't help that the performance was over-miked, any subtle nuance drowned by sheer volume. But the audience at the Barbican Theatre, most of whom seemed to be dance people, were delighted, because the music served the dance. That's as it should be. We can listen to Les Illuminations any time, but we don't often get to see it danced.

Richard Alston Dance Company's Barbican Britten; Phaedra is part of Barbican Britten, a two week celebration of Britten's centenary that examiness Britten's music from stimulating new perspectives. For more information please read here.  Claire Seymour (author of The Operas of Benjamin Britten) and I will be covering most events and more here and in Opera Today.  Please keep coming back ! (Our Hunting Fathers on Friday)  More on Britten on my site here than anywhere else that's not solely Britten.