Culture

It’s been too long since I saw The Merry Widow. I have been thinking that for some time, and the superb new production of it by Opera North only made me feel that we should be able to go to more performances of it than we get a chance to. It has been newly and wittily translated by Kit Hesketh-Harvey, and the production is in the safe hands of Giles Havergal, with set and costume designs by Leslie Travers. It’s been too long since I saw The Merry Widow. I have been thinking that for some time, and the superb new production of it by Opera North only made me feel that we should be able to go to more performances of it than we get a chance to.

The more often I see Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, the more I am bewildered and fascinated by it. The more often I see Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, the more I am bewildered and fascinated by it. There is no question that it is one of his most brilliant operatic scores, if not the most brilliant of all. One thing that never fails to astonish is the variety of interpretations that the work is susceptible of, both the score and the drama, though of course in a fine production they are complementary — and almost every production I’ve seen has been good. The latest version, from Opera North, is one of the most bemusing so far.

Any seasoned opera-goer is likely to have had the experience of attending a performance where most things are right, but the overall impression is dismal; and also where, even more puzzlingly, most things are wrong but somehow the total effect is good or even overwhelming. To some extent it is relative to the work being performed, but not entirely; and to a much greater extent it depends on what your expectations are — I always try to have low ones, but expectations aren’t voluntary, alas. Last Sunday’s performance of Tristan und Isolde at the Royal Festival Hall was, emphatically, the second kind of occasion. It’s not hard to list what was wrong with it, and that will sound damning.