Death in Venice - opera review

Death in Venice
An opera in two acts
Music by Benjamin Britten
Libretto by Myfanwy Piper

Performed by the English National Opera (ENO) at the London Coliseum

On the face of it, this production presents itself as a conventional interpretation of Britten’s opera, which in turn remains true to the original 1912 novella by Thomas Mann. However, beneath the surface there are a number of significant departures that shift this production far enough off-centre to mark it as distinct.

Under Edward Gardner the orchestra was near perfect and shone through with clarity and brilliance despite a difficult score.  The soloists were audible throughout, with excellent diction. He brought new colouring and expression to this work, which is all too often served up as a carbon-copy reproduction of past performances.

Although there were a few moments where the chorus was a bit muted, this was improved upon in subsequent performances.

Tenor Ian Bostridge can always be counted on to bring a role to life, as he does memorably with the Bach Passions, for example. He does not disappoint, playing Aschenbach with unparalleled energy and fire.

Peter Coleman-Wright gave an excellent performance in the multiple roles he played, while counter-tenor Iestyn Davies was brought on stage in what is usually an off-stage role in this production. This was a welcome innovation, adding to the aura of mysteriousness and ambiguity in the work by the contrast between his male presence and “female” voice. 

Death in Venice burst into full flowering in the 1970’s with two canonical artistic formulations, the first being the sublime Visconti film (1971), starring Dirk Bogarde as Aschenbach, with Björn Andrésen as the Polish boy Tadzio. His image seemed to epitomise the “beautiful boy”, so much so that the feminist Germaine Greer went on to use it on the cover of her book of the same title.

Britten’s opera was first performed in 1973, with the tenor role of Aschenbach custom-made for his lifelong partner, Peter Pears. This is considered to be the canonical version of the opera, recorded on a Decca label with Peter Pears and John Shirley-Quirk (Bass Baritone) under the baton of Steuart Bedford, supervised by Britten himself. 

Londoners who had the good fortune to go to the (November 2006) Philharmonia Orchestra concert performance of the work at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, conducted by Richard Hickox, were treated to a near perfect rendering of the Britten-Pears version, with Philip Langridge as Aschenbach and Alan Opie in the baritone roles.

Both the opera and film are fairly faithful interpretations of the Mann novella, although Visconti typically adds some extravagant creative flourishes and twists of his own to the tale. 

They embroider on the fate of the famous writer, Gustav von Aschenbach, who escapes to Venice in a state of exhaustion and artistic block, hoping to find rejuvenation. This he finds in the form of the boy Tadzio, whose beauty seems to embody all that he has lost and yearns for, and with whom he becomes obsessed. 

Where Aschenbach has spent a life of self-renunciation in pursuit of perfection in art through discipline and self mastery, the boy is a spontaneous, yet perfect product of nature.  Aschenbach is contrived, tending towards self-absorption, melancholia, intellectualisation and sterility, whilst the boy represents ideal beauty, youth and freedom.

In the programme notes Mervyn Cooke shows that Britten represents this difference musically by the use of a rather intellectually contrived and dissonant 12-tone leitmotif on piano. In contrast, Tadzio is signalled by a simpler and cleaner Balinese five point scale, using percussion instruments.

Aschenbach's motif can be taken to represent the pinnacle of the Western musical canon, particularly as articulated by Arnold Schonberg. Schonberg had himself expressed fears about the potential for atonal composition, when taken to extremes, to become sterile and mechanical. Tadzio’s motif, on the other hand, symbolises the intoxicating allure of the exotic east. This had been experienced by Brittan personally on a visit to Bali in the 1950’s. The Balinese gamelan and other percussion devices are used to emphasise Tadzio’s freshness, vitality and pureness.

This tension between Aschenbach and the boy (or what he represents), and Aschenbach’s internal struggle is symbolised by the figures of Apollo, the god of reason, and Dionysus, god of unreason and of passion. There are also allusions to other ambiguities and conflicts, such as those between east and west, or age and youth. Venice itself is an ambiguous mixture of water and stone, combining grandeur with decadence (like Aschenbach).

Tadzio’s sought-after qualities are conveyed solely through the medium of dance and movement, as he does not utter a word throughout the opera.

This production features scenes of lavish movement and dance, to contrast with Aschenbach’s lost vitality and creative power. Unfortunately though, this was slightly artificial and contrived, and came across as diversionary.

Anyone attending the current production hoping for glorious views of Venice will probably be disappointed. The set was fairly stark, with few images of the city. The hotel and beach scenes were more reminiscent of a safari lodge, with a black granite stretch of paving across the stage adding to the feeling of too much starkness and black and white. 

The lighting tended to hover between darkness and a strange intense glare that often threw the cast into silhouette and made it very difficult to focus. Visconti’s film effectively contrasted the mood on the set to match the drama, and transitioned light and colour to a glorious high point in the middle of the film. His richly textured palette gave the film the feel of a living Canaletto masterpiece.

As things begin to deteriorate subsequently in the story, Visconti faded out the colouring from clear and light tones to a turbulent, disturbing series of darker images. But these are not just dark. His Venice becomes visibly infected, and it is as if the viewer can see the malaise.

These contrasts and changes in light and texture are important markers of the transformation and movement taking place in the drama, and in Aschenbach’s state of mind.

The problems with intensity, contrast and development was also evident in Bostridge’s portrayal of Aschenbach, whose emotional state appeared static throughout the opera. His characterisation left little room for tenderness or ambiguity in the character he was playing.

This ambiguity is very evident in both the novella and the Britten – Pears interpretation of it. Aschenbach is not portrayed as being all bad. His leitmotif is glorious, with the words “I, Aschenbach, famous as a master writer, successful, honoured, self-discipline my strength” reflecting his noble qualities.

By the same token, Mann intimates that Tadzio himself was imperfect. Aschenbach observes that the boy is pale and weak, with imperfect teeth, overly refined and delicate.

Mann’s Tadzio was fourteen, which is considerably younger than the current production’s Benjamin Griffiths, who nevertheless has all the right qualities for this role. He conveys youthfulness and athleticism, along with grace and refinement without sacrificing his masculinity.

But with him being older, and Bostridge younger than the novella’s intended age, the gap between them was narrowed considerably. Bostridge’s Aschenbach appeared temperamentally closer to a histrionic youth, rather than a man in his fifties, further undermining the notion of an unbridgeable distance between them.

Performances of this work usually present the relationship between Aschenbach and the boy in fairly neutral terms, allowing audiences to draw their own conclusions. This production leaned towards a more fixed interpretation. This was partly conveyed through the stark black and white contrasts and reduced development in characterisation. The ever-looming darkness engulfed the entire work as a portent of evil.

Mann’s Aschenbach is nuanced and multi-dimensional, changing throughout the work. Bostridge’s version comes across as slightly demented and almost all bad. The production also alters Tadzio’s role in the drama, for example by dispensing with his wave to the dying Aschenbach at the end, as stipulated by Mann. This changes the meaning of the work substantially. 

Overall, this is a great work that never fails to enthral and provoke thought, and the current production is no exception.

Brynn Binnell
London, June 2007