Benjamin Britten’s exquisitely styled short operas from the mid-1960s are full of broad strokes and slow, deliberate musical sequences. They can fall one of two ways in performance: into a frustratingly slow-paced, jumbled and incoherent madness; or, alternatively, into a calm, deeply insightful group meditation on universal themes. Interestingly, Neue Oper Wien’s production of The Curlew River and The Prodigal Son on their closing night of April 4, 2013, provided an example of both outcomes.
Composer Benjamin Britten (photo credit: Erich Auerbach/Hulton)
In 1964, Britten began writing a series of three musical theatre pieces he called “church parables,” which are short, stylized operas. Sparked to begin this cycle by a trip to Japan in 1956, where he learned about Japanese Noh theatre, The Curlew River (1964), The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966) and The Prodigal Son (1968) are deliberate and highly ritualistic, and performed entirely by men (a frustrating fact, which can sometimes distract from the story telling). They move slowly and loop back on themselves, and, though they don’t bear much musical similarity to what was then the nascent minimalist scene in America, they do share many aesthetic characteristics. These are meditative pieces, full of big spaces for one’s imagination. The stories are not detailed, but painted with broad strokes. Characters are deliberately contrived, drawing inspiration from parables and myths from many cultures. The music is influenced by Eastern traditions, incorporating un-tuned drums into a small chamber ensemble. Performed without a conductor, these works proceed in a series of looping, overlapping melodic ideas which are kept together through the use of the “Curlew Sign,” a meeting place in the score where all performers gather before launching into the next section.
Both The Curlew River and The Prodigal Son begin and end with the slow procession of the chorus to and from the stage, chanting as in a church ritual. This creates an austere atmosphere and a context for the slightly rigid stories which follow, and the men of the Vienna Chamber Choir set the tone beautifully in these passages. After the introduction in The Curlew River, the chorus got down to work setting the scene: hoisting the backdrop, shuffling boxes, rolling up the pant legs on their tuxedos. They donned top hats with long, white beaks on them, but their subsequent bird-like gestures were not slow and deliberate enough for the setting, and became somewhat distracting. Viennese hometown hero baritone Peter Edelmann as the Ferryman was as a calm point on the busy stage, both his enormous voice and his face were focused, deliberate, and austere. Against this rock, tenor Alexander Kaimbacher as the Madwoman was too frenetic and extroverted. He did make lovely use of some subtle gestures to convey repressed grief- the curling of toes, the scrunching of his dress with sweaty hands. But this was subsumed beneath his frenetic, constant movement, and his slightly melodramatic vocal performance. His costuming didn’t help, robed as he was in a too-obvious kimono which stood out as gaudy against the otherwise subtle and minimal set and props. The scenery provided for one fantastically, chillingly beautiful moment in this work: during a full-chorus section, the choir lifted long, bending metal poles with giant, white paper cranes attached, dancing them through the air in slow motion. But otherwise, the mood of this piece never settled, becoming frustrating and too long.
Tenor Gernot Heinrich (photo credit: von Moritz A.)
After intermission, The Prodigal Son was staged masterfully, full of simple but ingenious scenery and props. With a minimal colour palette – black, white and red – the stage provided the perfect setting for Britten’s stylized characters. A large chalkboard, with swinging doors, cut the stage in half, and the cast drew the scenery onto it as the piece progressed. The Tempter, the Father and both sons all wore fantastic, huge white masks, full of character but not overbearing, and the soloists navigated these masks very well. As the Prodigal Son went on his journey, he encountered a city full of long, red groping hands, a chorus of drunks in Dionysus masks, and a chorus of women in Betty-Boop-inspired masks, all of which was slightly cartoon-like, but never distracted from the music. The cast and orchestra maintained their focus from this visual coherence. Tenor Gernot Heinrich sang a fantastic Prodigal Son – young and edgy, and full of remorseful control at the end. The rest of the cast was also uniformly excellent, and the Amadeus Ensemble of Vienna gave an almost-flawless performance from the pit. Because the visual aspect of this staging was so pleasing, and the musical performance so consistent, Neue Oper Wien’s The Prodigal Son had the sort of gentle, meditative quality that makes these works of Britten so interesting. It was musical story-telling at its best – interesting, uncluttered, and fully diverting.
This performance closed the 20th season for Neue Oper Wien, which has an extremely exciting 21st season planned for the fall with two new premieres in the first few months alone. Look for the premiere of Biedermann und die Brandstifter (Biedermann and the Arsonist) from the very interesting young Czech-born, Viennese composer Šimon Voseček. Also on the bill in October is the premiere of Peter Eötvös’ Paradise Reloaded (Lilith).
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Caitlin Smith is a Canadian composer, currently based in Vienna. Follow her on Twitter: @tinyalligator.
