Proms: freedom bound up with
the law (Filed: 30/07/2004)
Matthew Rye reviews Curlew River and the BBC SO
conducted by Andrew Davis
With policemen milling around the arena as the
audience assembled for Wednesday's late-night Prom, had the Royal
Albert Hall become a terrorism target? No, this was Graham Vick's
apposite updating of Britten's church parable, Curlew River, from
monastic Fenland to present-day inner city.
It's the latest in a line of Birmingham Opera Company
productions to emphasise the contemporary relevance of opera. Here,
Britten's monks, who set aside their habits to enact, in a mixture
of medieval mystery and Japanese Noh, a madwoman's search for her
lost child, are the local constabulary (even members of the
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group were in uniform), conveying the
broader tragedy of missing children through one individual's
heartbreak and redemption (here relieved of its original
ecclesiastical cover).
Vick's reinterpretation proved ideal for the arena,
making this a truly "promenade" performance, with the audience
marshalled by plod extras.
Musically, it was a secret policeman's ball, with
strong vocal performances all round, but especially from Mark Wilde
as the Madwoman and Rodney Clarke as the Ferryman, and the BCMG
players captured that semi-improvised feel that Britten intended
through his conductorless freedom of movement.
No police patrolling last night's Prom, but more lost
infants, with Mahler's song cycle Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the
Death of Children). Replacing an indisposed Alice Coote, German
mezzo Petra Lang sang the five songs with a wonderful sense of line
that lost none of the meaning behind the words.
A much sunnier world was conjured up by Mozart's A
major Piano Concerto, K488, in which Paul Lewis was the
self-effacing soloist, making delicious chamber music of the
composer's Apollonian vision.
Both Mahler and Mozart had strong Bohemian
connections, so the two Czech masterpieces framing the two
solo-orientated pieces in this programme under Andrew Davis's baton,
although highly contrasting, were appropriate. First came
Martin\u02DAu's Frescoes of Piero della Francesca, the luminosity of
the composer's response to the painter's remarkable scenes in Arezzo
shining through an acoustic that can make the colours run. And,
lastly, came Janácek's Taras Bulba, vividly conjured up by the BBC
Symphony Orchestra, obviously enjoying being reunited with its
former chief conductor.
