Drive-by Shooting at Aldeburgh, or, A Refreshingly Comic New Opera

When was the last time you spent most of an opera laughing with pleasure? It certainly hasn't happened to me very often, which made Saturday night's ten minute mini-opera at the Aldeburgh Festival all the more a refreshing surprise.

Originally produced in Dublin the opera by John McIlduff (writer) and Brian Irvine (music) tells of a crime of passion among the Dublin elderly. Furious at her husband's affair with their neighbour Maureen (I think) at number thirteen - the precision adds to the comedy giving the listener a distinct sense of the environment in which these events are taking place - the aggrieved wife has resolved to "shoot the fecker in the pecker." She has purloined a gun kept by her husband originally used by his father in the GPO in 1916 and the prospect of prison holds no terrors - for health care will be better there!

Aldeburgh Festival 2018, or, Notes from the Opening Weekend

Note: A belated report on performances over the weekend of 8^th-10^th July 2018.

A visit to the Aldeburgh Festival has become a regular fixture in my summer calendar. On this occasion I was especially looking forward to hearing John Wilson's partnership with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and finally, hearing his own Orchestra live. I also caught the new opera by Emma Howard.

The best of the weekend was to be found in the two orchestral concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings, marrying up, with one exception, a set of works by Britten and American composers written in 1940-1 or (in the case of the Grimes Sea Interludes soon afterwards). These couplings brought out striking connections in musical language, affording the opportunity to hear afresh the Sea Interludes in particular.

Aldeburgh 2014 - And now for something completely different...Musicircus

It's not often you find Ravel on the programme alongside some bagpipes and Sousa's The Liberty Bell, but all that and much more could be found on Sunday when the Aldeburgh festival returned to the scene of last year's triumph, Grimes on the Beach. This year's use of Aldeburgh beach (or, for the most part, Crag Path which runs along just behind the beach) was in some ways less ambitious, requiring no stage, seating and lighting construction. In other ways, such as the better part of a thousand performers, it was more ambitious.

Musicircus is a concept credited to John Cage and first performed in 1967. Effectively it is a carnival of musicians. Think the Royal Mile in Edinburgh at the height of the Fringe (or, dare I say it, that scene a few decades ago before they tightened up on who could perform there) and you should have a rough picture.

Aldeburgh Festival 2014 – A Marathon Festival Saturday

Saturdays at Aldeburgh Festivals tend to be busily scheduled, and the first of the 2014 edition proved to be no exception. Five concerts were on offer starting at 11am in Blythburgh and ending at 11pm in Snape. I managed four (skipping Richard Goode in the main evening concert as he previously failed to grab me in Edinburgh). With the exception of the last, it was well worth a slightly manic day.

Proceedings kicked off at 11am with three twentieth century French works for two pianos performed by Festival Director Pierre-Laurent Aimard and regulars Tamara Stefanovich and Nenad Lecic. This seemed to follow, to some degree, on the excellent two piano recital from the final weekend last year and once again showed Aimard as an astute programmer. The highlight of the first half was the original virtuosic two-piano version of Ravel's La Valse brought off with aplomb by Lecic and Stefanovich, but the heart of the recital came from the single work of the second half: Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen. I previously heard this work in a performance given as part of the wonderful Royal Bank Lates series at the Edinburgh Festival, but found it instructive to hear it again on the back of having got to know Messiaen's music a lot better. In consequence I felt I had a much clearer appreciation of the structure of the piece, and various key aspects of Messiaen's style. What also undoubtedly made this special though were the performances of Aimard and Stefanovich who made me feel I was listening to a single instrument. The stylistic range required from soft, delicate passagework to precise, emphasised loud staccato is impressive in itself, but the most striking aspects were the way both players conveyed such a complete grasp of the architecture of the piece, and thus were able, in an intense heartfelt reading to build to an overpowering climax. Aided by the superb Blythburgh acoustic it was a really special experience.

Aldeburgh Festival 2014 - Owen Wingrave, or, Marking a Different Centenary

Aldeburgh Music has an enviable track record in opera productions in recent years, but this year's offering represented a tougher proposition. While Britten's Owen Wingrave is a sensible choice for the World War One centenary year, it is a work one previous encounter with which led me to feel is not on a level with masterpieces like Grimes and Budd, and I wondered in advance how this new production would fare. Fortunately it has many positive things going for it.

Under the expert guidance of Mark Wigglesworth (a promising marker ahead of his assumption of the ENO Musical Directorship in 2015), the Britten-Pears Orchestra demonstrated again (as was the case in Grimes last year) just what energy, punch and sense of drama young players can bring to opera. I repeat what I said then that it is greatly to Aldeburgh Music's credit that they take the risk of mounting productions like this with such forces. The orchestral playing throughout was superb. Wigglesworth in his shaping of the piece also made the strongest possible case for the score – he even managed to make the ending less problematic, an issue that stuck out for me on first hearing the work at the Royal Opera.

The line-up of soloists was also very strong. Russ Ramgobin gave as strong a performance of Owen as I recall Jacques Imbrailo giving in the Linbury. Jonathan Summers was compelling both vocally and dramatically as Coyle (somewhat to my surprise as my recollection of the last time I heard him live was less favourable). There was a particularly sympathetically done turn from Samantha Crawford as Mrs Coyle, and an appropriately chilly, arrogant performance from Catherine Backhouse as Kate. The other supporting roles were all well taken.

Aldeburgh 2013 - The Church Parables

Grimes on the Beach has, understandably, garnered more attention in this Britten anniversary year but one of the other major productions, the performance of Britten's three church parables in their original location of Orford Church, is unmissable. (Judging from reports we have heard, Grimes should prove so as well - we will be there later in the week.)

Curlew River, Photo by Robert Workman

Director Frederic Wake-Walker has gone back to the source. I should perhaps let the composer himself explain. Writing in the programme for the 1964 festival, Britten said:

It was in Tokyo in January 1956 that I saw a Nō-drama for the first time.... The whole occasion made a tremendous impression upon me, the simple touching story, the economy of the style, the intense slowness of the action, the marvellous skill and control of the performers, the beautiful costumes, the mixture of chanting, speech, singing, with which three instruments made up the strange music - it all offered a totally new 'operatic' experience.

Aldeburgh 2013 - In Brief

As well as Volkov and the CBSO's concert, Saturday was a pretty full schedule with two sets of quartets. In the morning Quatuor Mosaiques treated us to Purcell, Haydn and Schubert. Haydn's op.76/6 quartet responded wonderfully to their period style but while Schubert's D887 quartet was very beautifully played I personally prefer a more romantic approach.

That afternoon in Aldeburgh church it was the turn of a quartet with a different style and period: the Arditti Quartet with works by Harvey, Britten and Anderson. I only really know Harvey's larger orchestral works so was glad to hear two of his quartets. Arising from the time he spent at IRCAM (with whom I've also heard him collaborate on Speakings) his fourth quartet was particularly interesting for its use of live electronics. Having said that, the first two sections took a bit too long to build up. They created some nice effects, particularly in the middle section which had a passage akin to whale song. Julian Anderson's Light Music left me rather cold and as was the case the last time I heard a piece of his, failed to evoke the the inspiration detailed in his programme note (so far as that could be deciphered).

Aldeburgh 2013 - Watkins, Volkov and the CBSO PLAY Harvey, Matthews and more

I know Ilan Volkov well from his successful tenure at the BBC SSO, prior to the man himself taking over. To some at the Maltings last night he was a new name, but judging from the reaction they were glad to make his acquaintance. Certainly I was not surprised that his interpretations of Jonathan Harvey and Colin Matthews marked the highlight of the festival so far for me (though I have only had four concerts to date). It helped, of course, that he had the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to work with. I've praised them before, most recently after their Edinburgh visit last summer, and am rather jealous of their forthcoming season.

In the first half, though, the standout performance came from horn soloist Richard Watkins in Colin Matthews' superb horn concerto. I've not encountered the piece before but it should be done more often. According to the programme note, "the horn solo is, literally, a wanderer". And it was refreshing to find that they didn't mean figuratively. The concerto began with both Watkins and Volkov absent from the stage, the orchestra's leader Laurence Jackson beating slowly with his bow. Volkov then tiptoed onto the podium to take up the reins while Watkins made himself heard from the wings. As the twenty minute, single movement work progressed, he made his way across the stage. This was more than just a gimmick as the sound of the horn changed in interesting ways with the Maltings' acoustic: the effect as he stood close to the stage right wall, the bell pointing towards it, was particularly nice. If the need for this odyssey presented an added challenge to Watkins it was not apparent in his playing which was beautifully executed throughout, without a cracked or fluffed note in sight. And as if that wasn't enough, Matthews provided extra horns by the upper doors for a quadraphonic effect. All this made for an experience that was not only excellent musically but also theatrically. It is always nice to come out of a performance of a contemporary piece wondering why on earth it isn't performed more often, and this was certainly one such. (There is a recording available by Watkins, Mark Elder and the Halle on the orchestra's own label which I will now be checking out, though it will not be quite the same.)

Aldeburgh Festival 2013 – A Festival Weekend, or Five Concerts in Two Days

The more astute observers of this website and my twitter feed may have noticed that I like to cram the culture in, and there are few better ways to do that than at busily scheduled Festivals. Aldeburgh isn't quite as mad from this point of view as Edinburgh, but yesterday in particular it kept us very pleasantly busy.

Saturday began at 11am in Aldeburgh Parish Church with Festival Director, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and his sister Valerie Aimard in a recital for cello and piano, both together and solo. The programme was a moderately demanding one of Kurtag, Carter, Shostakovich and Britten, and I fear I may still have been a little weary after a late night at Peter Grimes the previous evening. I got most enjoyment out of the Shostakovich (piano solo) and the Kurtag (cello solo). I was less convinced by the Aimards as a duo pairing. To my ear, and this was perhaps a consequence of being seated on the piano side, the sound didn't appear equally balanced, and Valerie Aimard I found a bit austere for my taste. It was never an uninteresting recital, and it was well worth hearing all four works, but she, in particular, didn't compare for me with Miklos Perenyi's performance on the same instrument in the same venue last year, or with Heinrich Schiff who used to come to Edinburgh in the McMaster years.

Aldeburgh Festival 2013 – Peter Grimes in Concert, or, I Simply Hadn't Realised

Prior to this performance, I had seen Peter Grimes staged twice. Once by Scottish Opera in a perfectly acceptable production but with an inadequate Grimes, and once in the ENO David Alden production which I detested. In contrast my first experience of Billy Budd (in the marvellous ENO Albery production) was overwhelming. I think it is in consequence of this that I have tended to have a grumble to myself on a regular basis at the insistence on Grimes as Britten's operatic masterpiece. After this performance it is clear to me that I simply had not had the opportunity to realise what an extraordinarily powerful piece it is.

This concert performance will be followed next week by performances on Aldeburgh Beach. This brought real benefits as, unusually for concert opera, the performers had all been rehearsing together for some time. It showed. The soloists were all off score and the individual characterisations were without exception remarkably vivid. I was very grateful to be close enough to the stage to really see every facial expression. Especially notable was the way in which expressions and body language in sections where individuals were not actually singing conveyed a continuing deep engagement with the drama. For example, in the build up to Ellen Orford's arrival at the pub in Act 1 Scene 2 Giselle Allen somehow gave a sense that she was out there on the storm tossed cart.

Hearing an opera score in concert often leads one to pay more attention to aspects which have previously not registered, and this also happened to me at Friday's performance. I was particularly struck by the brief flirtation at the beginning of Act 3 between Swallow and the nieces.

Aldeburgh 2012: Ives Symphonies, or, Going out with a Bang (well quite a few bangs really)

The 2012 Aldeburgh Festival ended on Sunday with one of those large forces extravaganzas that might have been specifically written for just such a purpose. It also ended with a European premiere, which makes it rather interesting that the whole enterprise seemed to have escaped the attention of the BBC.

The programme was made up of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, and two symphonies by American oddity Charles Ives, his moderately well-known Second (though it was completely new to me) and his Universe Symphony (the aforementioned European premiere). Under the direction of Ives scholar James Sinclair, an enormous number of student musicians from the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, the Britten-Pears Orchestra, Aldeburgh Young Musicians, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal College of Music and the University of London Symphony Orchestra threw themselves into the performance with gusto.

A word first about the Universe Symphony. Ives only completed a Prelude and two movements – in fact reading the detailed programme note by Sinclair it seems more accurate to say that one movement (Earth) is complete and this was followed in this performance by a Coda originally intended to form part of the Heaven movement. There have been attempts at completion but this was apparently the most that can be performed while remaining 'true' Ives as it were.

Aldeburgh 2012: From Darkness into Joy and Light

Towards the end of Brian McMaster's tenure at the Edinburgh Festival he devised a brilliant series of late evening concerts and other performances under the sponsorship of the Royal Bank of Scotland – the Royal Bank Lates. Since his departure the late night performance has rather disappeared from Edinburgh programmes and excepting the OAE's Late Shift isn't much in evidence elsewhere, so it was lovely to be reminded on Friday night in Leiston what a sense of magic performing at that time can bring to a show.

Before Life and After was a site specific combination of film with three song cycles for tenor and piano in the Long Shop Museum in Leiston. The film element, and the direction of the tenor were both provided by Netia Jones fresh from her triumph with the Knussen Double Bill which opened the Festival. This is the third site specific performance Jones has undertaken at the Aldeburgh Festival and I had heard glowing reports of both the previous two. The song cycles, Britten's Winter Words, excerpts from Finzi's A Young Man's Exhortation and Tippett's Boyhood's End, were performed by James Gilchrist (tenor) and Anna Tilbrook (piano). The music was all new to me and I was especially glad to discover the Britten and the Hardy poems which it sets – particularly 'Before Life and After'.

The venue was well chosen. With its beamed roof high overhead, glimpses of the darkening sky through the odd pane of glass and a steam engine concealing the piano it is a visually striking space with what proved to be a suitably resonant acoustic. The images generally fitted well with the texts of the songs and were linked to some nicely judged acting from James Gilchrist as a station master coming, I presumed we were supposed to imagine, towards the end of long service on the Aldeburgh-Leiston branch line as the axe of closure falls.

Aldeburgh 2012 - Britten's GPO Films

Parts of Britten's work on the soundtracks of some thirty odd documentaries and adverts made by the GPO film unit in the 1930s are pretty well know, especially those which set Auden's verses such as Night Mail and The Way to the Sea. Yet they come from an intense period at the very start of the composer's career and many of them are much less well known, which begged the question of whether they would be sufficient to fill more than two hours of concert programming. The answer, in the hands of Nicholas Collon, the Aurora Orchestra and Sam West, was emphatically yes.

Getting them to the stage in the first place was not an entirely straightforward process, as Collon explained at a talk earlier in the day. The scores exist, but as is the way with the process of editing films, the existing scores do not precisely match up with the existing pictures. Bigger complications were to be found in some of Britten's more adventurous percussion choices: the cart drawn along an asbestos surface is no longer practical. Fortunately, the work that had gone into re-editing and re-scoring paid off and, as narrator Sam West assured us, no percussionists were injured. Indeed, the live concert setting ensured Britten's scores could be heard rather better than they are on the original films, which not only suffer the sorts of issues of fidelity one would expect of recordings made nearly eighty years ago, but also some decidedly ropey playing in places.

However, the programme opened without a film, but instead with the score to Men Behind the Meters, the print having been lost. As Collon himself remarked, it is not typical Britten. Indeed, the first part sounded almost like the sort of muzak you might get in a not very good restaurant. It's rather a pity we couldn't see what pictures it was meant to serve.

Aldeburgh Festival 2012: The Alienating Manner of Peter Serkin

It has been some little while since I came out of the first half of a recital feeling quite so irritated. The pianist Peter Serkin had not especially wowed me when performing with the SCO at Saturday's concert, but I had certainly not anticipated my unusually extreme reaction to him flying solo.

The first problem with this recital was the basic programme. Serkin had chosen to combine a 55 minute first half of contemporary works by Knussen, Goehr, Takemitsu and Wuorinen with Beethoven's hour long Diabelli Variations. In any hands I suspect this would have been a challenging combination to bring off, Serkin's manner for me made it a real endurance test.

Things began innocuously enough with Knussen's Variations. This passed my first test for any piece of new, or in this case comparatively new (1989), music heard for the first time – my attention was engaged and I felt I would like to hear it again. Thereafter the trouble started. Returning to perform the Goehr, Serkin seemed to pause for an excessive period of time before commencing the piece. The same thing happened again before (and indeed at the end) of the other three items in the first half. At the start of pieces one felt as if Serkin was waiting for there to be complete silence and indeed if it did not arrive that we might be waiting there all night. Such silence is particularly difficult to achieve in the Maltings where the seats naturally creak. Whereas on Saturday, Knussen's determination to hold stillness after pieces felt like a request, a suggestion, Serkin's felt like an order, and not one that his playing had moved me to naturally obey. The problem was compounded by the fact that Serkin's style often left me uncertain (including at the end of the Beethoven) as to whether or not he had actually finished.

Aldeburgh 2012 - Knussen and the SCO play Ives, Goehr, Stravinsky and Berg (but not Knussen!)

Normally when I go to hear the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, they're kind enough to be playing at the Queen's Hall, a convenient two minutes or so from my front door. Sometimes I have to venture a little further when they present a bigger work at the Usher Hall, and very occasionally I'll make the trip over to Glasgow to hear them at City Halls. Since I can, and do, hear my local band all the time you might reasonably ask if it was worth coming all the way to Aldeburgh to do so. Of course, I haven't come to Aldeburgh just for them, but they were one of the items that made this first week appear the more compelling of the two when I was making my decision about when to visit. The Snape Maltings is one of my favourite concert halls in the world and its size and acoustic are an ideal fit for the SCO. Add to which, they were playing under the baton of Oliver Knussen, who conducts them regularly in Edinburgh and for whom they always play very well.

The concert did not disappoint. Well, leaving aside perhaps the slight regret that the Knussen premiere which should have been the centrepiece went unheard as it is unfinished at the time of writing - Aldeburgh will just have to get them back next year to play it! As Knussen himself noted in his witty and self-effacing acceptance speech when he was presented with the Critics' Circle award afterwards, he was "a little embarrassed that it takes place on the occasion of the non-delivery of another piece". But it would be wrong to dwell on that, since there was not the slightest sense that we had been musically short-changed.

Aldeburgh 2012 - Perényi plays Bach and more

It is generally quite nice to start an Aldeburgh festival day with some chamber music in a Suffolk church, and this proved especially true of Miklós Perényi's recital in Aldeburgh church on Saturday morning. His programme, the first of three this week, was built around two Bach cello suites, part of a complete cycle.

He opened with the first, in G major, BWV 1007, which received a compelling and unmannered performance. Perényi is not a cellist I have encountered before, but his technique is of the highest calibre. True, the reading might not have been as emotionally engaging as some, and certainly it was very different from what we might have heard from Rostropovich (whose previous fund-raising performance of the suites in the same venue was referred to in a brief speech before the concert started), though this is not necessarily a bad thing.

And he was not without charm as a performer, drawing the audience in in a nicely understated manner: every now and then there was a playful spark in his eye as he glanced out towards us, or a smile as he prepared to embark on a particular movement. Still, the second suite, or rather the fourth in E flat, BWV 1010, was more emotionally satisfying with the Sarabande and the second Bouree being especially moving, but in part that is because there is more weight to the work. Both performances left me feeling rather sorry that I won't be making it to the other concerts; but, as ever at a festival, you can't do everything. If you can make Monday and Tuesday's performances at Blythburgh church, they should be well worth the journey.

Aldeburgh Festival 2012: Knussen Double Bill, or, Fairy Tale Magic and Morals

After last summer's amazing Louis Lortie performance at the Snape Proms it was firmly in my mind to make it to some of this year's Aldeburgh Festival. Then the opening weekend was announced and I knew I couldn't miss it. I first discovered Oliver Knussen's two operatic one acters based on Maurice Sendak's childrens books from a BBC Proms television broadcast. I was sufficiently beguiled to buy the CD but I'd never had the opportunity to hear them live, so I have been looking forward to tonight's opening performance with great excitement. I was not disappointed.

The production by Netia Jones and Lightmap put many of those on our main stages this season to shame. Using some of the most imaginative animation I've ever seen and, at least as far as Where the Wild Things Are was concerned (I don't know the book of Higglety Pigglety Pop to be able to judge) staying very faithful to Maurice Sendak's original illustrations, Jones conjured up beguiling imaginary worlds. By themselves the visuals were beautiful, but what made the dramatic side of the evening was the near seamless interaction between cast and animations, whether it was Lucy Schaufer's Jennie biting leaves off an animated plant, or Claire Booth's Max kicking his animated bedroom door shut. We do not see that kind of detailed performance often enough in an operatic context. There was more wonder and drama and emotional punch in these two one acters than in much other opera I have seen this season.

Musically it was fascinating to really listen to these works in a live context once again. I realised how much my ear had changed, how much more music I've heard since that Proms broadcast which I think took place back in 2002. Then I remember being sucked in by the way Knussen set the words of Higglety Pigglety Pop – the simple yet so true meditations of the dog Jennie on how dissatisfied one can be even when one seems to have everything, the quest for “experience” - and the not realising one is getting it at the time. This time I felt I appreciated much more in Knussen's score including the humour – for example, the repeated chorus which ends Pop.

Snape Proms - Louis Lortie's Spellbinding Liszt

It can be difficult in August, with both the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Proms in full swing, to notice that other festivals are available. Fortunately my parents live in Suffolk and drew my attention to the Snape Proms. In this series one concert stood out: Louis Lortie performing Liszt's complete Annees de Pelerinage. I have always found Liszt intriguing when I've heard his work, but he isn't very frequently performed in recital. Unfortunately I'd already pretty much committed myself to being in Edinburgh for most of August, but I decided to make a slightly mad trip down to Suffolk for two nights just for this concert. When it came to heading off on Wednesday I wondered if it was really worth doing. It turned out to be one of those extraordinary evenings of live performance where you just sit in total wonder.

Louis Lortie's performance was an utter tour de force. To perform this work complete (which I suspect even Liszt cannot have done since he had retired from live performance by the time he wrote the pieces in the Third Year) requires enormous stamina. This is about two hours and forty minutes of music that demands rock solid technique, poetic feeling for Liszt's various moods, real dynamic range (one hears such pianissimos against such triple fortes very very seldom brought off in performance) and a sense of shaping. There is nowhere for the performer to hide, and the end is just as demanding as the beginning. Lortie brought it off perfectly, whether quietly introspective or with fingers flying at unbelievable speed across the keyboard.

Aldeburgh 2011 in Brief - Tuesday 14th June

Rather than a full review of Tuesday's events, I intend to give just a brief summary of my thoughts.

The day nearly began with a showing at Aldeburgh cinema of Bernstein's LSO performance of Mahler's second symphony, filmed at Ely cathedral. However, not least as I have it on DVD, we opted out. It's actually a very fine performance, though I rather wish Humphrey Burton had focussed more on the music and less on the architecture. Still, seeing Bernstein and Janet Baker perform is a treat for those of us too young to have actually done so (the LSO and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus are very fine too).

One of the joys of Aldeburgh is the many beautiful settings in which you find yourself attending concerts. Blythburgh church is arguably second only to the main Snape Maltings site in this regard. And, with Christophe Rousset on hand to provide a harpsichord recital featuring Couperin (both Louis and François) and Handel, we had music to match the setting. It was all very nicely played, though seventy minutes without interval is a long time to be sitting on the hard wooden church pews and the programme would surely have benefitted from a break. Perhaps as a result of this, as much as any artistic merit, I found the Handel the most persuasive. I also found myself wishing he'd given us a little bit of my favourite harpsichord repertoire, the music of JS Bach, which I find makes a particular sense when played on the instrument.

The Rape of Lucretia

Amid an already rich opening weekend of the 2011 Aldeburgh Festival, which has included such highlights as Simon Rattle and the CBSO's stunning Messiaen and Spira Mirabilis's wonderful Beethoven, it almost seems greedy to expect yet another highlight of the same order. Yet this is what the festival served up in their concert performance of Britten's opera The Rape of Lucretia. It hasn't always worked on the stage, yet in this setting it is fearsomely dramatic, such as when Tarquinius makes his horse ride to Rome, or the vividness of his passage down the corridor to Lucretia's room to commit the titular act. Indeed, in much the same way as a passion, one could see it working much better this way than in an actual staging. It is the case that at a few moments, such as when Tarquinius sings that he is taking Lucretia's hand, it might have been nice to semi-stage and actually do this, not least as they were standing right next to each other at the time.

It isn't a work I'm hugely familiar with, yet hearing it showcased like this gives me cause to wonder why. The light, single part, scoring is full of beautiful and glittering music, and it provided a wonderful opportunity for the Aldeburgh Festival Ensemble to shine. The scratch group of top notch players had been specially assembled by Oliver Knussen for the purpose and they were never less than a treat to listen to. Knussen himself was masterful, both in his control of his forces, but also in his unassuming nature, never getting in the way of the music or drama, but rather always its servant.

So, to the singers, and here too we were spoilt. The piece has a distinctly Greek feel to it, featuring as it does male and female chorus who comment on the action throughout. These parts went to Ian Bostridge and Susan Gritton respectively. I am not always convinced by Bostridge and can find his performances overdone sometimes, however on Monday night I could find no fault, indeed, he was wonderful, commanding, his voice beautiful and clear. Opposite him, Gritton was very nearly as fine, certainly in terms of tone and colour, the only reservation would concern the audibility of the words, which, as with several of the women, was slightly less good. However, this is a minor caveat, as in all cases enough of the words were audible to follow the plot clearly; and, given this, I was glad that they did not opt for surtitling, as some critics have suggested they should have, since this draws attention away from the drama.