A Real Triumph in Music and Vision 10 March

A Real Triumph
The first Milan performance of
Britten's 'Death in Venice'
impresses GIUSEPPE PENNISI

On 5 March 2011, the audience at Teatro alla Scala was just like any other opening night crowd. Even though evening dresses are no longer required and the onlooker spotted also a few 'blue jeans' under elegant cashmere sweaters, a few ladies were in long gowns and some gentlemen wore dinner jackets. As usual, cellular phones rang until just a few seconds before the start of the performance. There was a rather large presence of music reviewers (including this reporter) -- mostly at the right end of rows 10-13 of the orchestra stalls or in two fourth tier boxes -- because for the first time in Milan, the last of Benjamin Britten's operatic masterpieces -- Death in Venice -- was being staged.
As a matter of fact, even though several of Britten's works are now in Italian theatres' programs (especially after the thirtieth anniversary of the composer's death in 2006), Death in Venice has been staged only in the Lagoon City (in 1973), in Genoa in 1999 and in Florence in 2002, then in Venice again in 2008. The late nineteenth century Genoa-Florence-Venice production was quite classy and was very well received by audience and music critics alike: it was awarded the 2003 Premio Abbiati (the most important yearly awarded prize) by the Italian National Association of Music Critics. Nonetheless, the opera is generally unknown to the Italians.

A scene from Act II of Britten's 'Death in Venice' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
Whilst La Scala's foyer, orchestra stalls and boxes were unmistakably Milanese, and thus Italian, the stage was unmistakably British. With the exception only of the orchestra and the corps de ballet, the Teatro alla Scala had imported, lock, stock and barrel, the deservingly successful 2007 English National Opera production, conceived by Deborah Warner (stage direction), Tom Pye (stage sets), Cloe Obolensky (costumes), Jean Kalman (lighting), Kim Brandstrup with John Graham-Hall and Peter Coleman Wright as the two main protagonists and Iestyn Davies in the role of the voice of Apollo. Most of the other singers and dancers of the nearly forty minor roles were an international cast with only a few Italians. The same production had been seen in Brussels in 2009. I believe it was an excellent idea for La Scala to co-produce it and bring it to Milan.

John Graham-Hall as Aschenbach in Act I of Britten's 'Death in Venice' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
Death in Venice is quite well known in the English speaking musical world. After its première in Aldeburgh, the opera was shown in nearly fifteen major houses (including London's Covent Garden and the New York Metropolitan Opera), just a few months after its first staging. Even though it is most dependent on the specific vocal qualities of the protagonist -- it was written for Peter Pears, Britten's lifelong partner, and is dedicated to him -- it has an intimate, intense blend of the composer's personal adaptation of the twelve-note-row system in association with the fundamental elements of tonal harmony he never abandoned. Arnold Whittall writes, rightly, that '[Death in Venice] is the fullest demonstration of the flexibility and focus of Britten's own latest style'. Again, an unmistakably British focus which goes back to Purcell in particular.

John Graham-Hall as Aschenbach in Act I of Britten's 'Death in Venice' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
From Thomas Mann's short novel, Myfanwy Piper drew inspiration for a perfect two Act, seventeen scene text. Librettist and composer worked closely together to provide an opera where music and plot work most effectively at the level of a dramatic action based entirely on psychological motivation and development. Although Britten was homosexual (and Thomas Mann had been bisexual for most of his life), Death in Venice is concerned with neither the sexual attraction of the older man (Aschenbach) for a handsome adolescent (Tadzio) nor with the weakening of creativity, but with guilt, self-doubt and masochistic resignation. Thus, Thomas Mann's novel is filtered through eyes quite different to those of Luchino Visconti who, in the early 1970s, just when Britten was composing the opera, directed a well-known movie from the same novel. In Visconti's work, sexual attraction is the main drive, whilst Britten has a more introspective approach -- the end-of-life of the intellectual longing for the lost beauty and innocence of youth. The role of the co-protagonists -- the bass-baritone in seven different guises as the premonition of Death, a Charon-like traveler, gondolier, hotel manager, etc, leading Aschenbach towards the afterworld -- is crucial.

John Graham-Hall as Aschenbach and Anna Dennisi as a strawberry seller in Act II of Britten's 'Death in Venice' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Britten knew quite well that he had a fatal heart condition; he was a fervent practicing Roman Catholic and 'the Court Composer' in a Protestant country. He conceived Death in Venice as his last opera. As with other writers (John Addington Symonds and Thomas Mann) and composers (foremost of all, Richard Wagner), Venice was chosen for his last travel as a living person because of the melancholy stemming from the extraordinary beauty of the most unlikely city in the lagoon. As a Roman Catholic, Britten believed in the afterlife and showed no fear in approaching it, but had doubts about his own existence and nostalgic feelings about youth, the only season that never comes back.

A scene from Act II of Britten's 'Death in Venice' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
In the production we see two different sides of Venice: the city as such is hot, humid, covered with low clouds and tormented by 'scirocco' wind from the sound, the lagoon is stagnant and smelly; the Lido (viz the elegant hotel and the beach) are under a shining bright sun. The city is the river on which Charon rows dead people to the afterworld. The Lido is the memory of youth.

John Graham-Hall as Aschenbach in Act I of Britten's 'Death in Venice' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
The acting was perfect, especially the combination of action with dancing and mime. John Graham-Hill showed vocal qualities quite similar to those of the late Peter Pears: a strong center register where he goes to the height of virtuoso acute and to the arabesque of delicate phrasing. His role is quite taxing: always on stage for nearly two and a half hours. The Scala audience gave him a well-deserved enthusiastic accolade. Next to him, Peter Coleman Wright, in seven different visions of the anticipation of death, gave evidence of being skillful and versatile but, at least on 5 March, short in volume. Countertenor Iestyn Davies was perfect. Tadzio was an athletic and handsome young dancer, Albert Terribile.

A scene from Act II of Britten's 'Death in Venice' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Brescia/Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
A final remark on the conducting: Edward Gardner slowed the tempi so that the opera lasted ten minutes longer than the recording conducted by Steuart Bedford under Britten's vigilant eyes. This made the overall impact even more engrossing. One of the main Milan papers wrote that Death in Venice 'brought fresh air to La Scala'. In short, a real triumph.
Copyright © 10 March 2011 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

BENJAMIN BRITTEN
LA SCALA
ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA
IESTYN DAVIES
EDWARD GARDNER
MILAN
VENICE
ITALY
UNITED KINGDOM
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