Myfanwy Piper’s libretto for Britten’s Death in Venice, based on Thomas Mann’s novella, is both richly poetic and an intellectual challenge. With the splendour of La Serenissima so economically conveyed by Tom Schenk and Richard Hudson’s design – tarnished gold panels, a boardwalk over a pool of shallow water, elegantly Edwardian costumes – the action moves without hindrance or gimmick in and out of Ashenbach’s dreams. We often got all of the above within the space of a few words.The care Padmore put into the sculpting of individual words was almost dizzying. Guttering candles glint off Aschenbach’s hourglass at his dingy desk; the first act closes with a blaze of glittering light after the games on the beach. So too did we feel in his posture vulnerability and shame as the troupe of Players round on him humiliatingly midway through act two (“Ha ha! This is partly the fault of Britten and his librettist, of course, but Oke’s tendency to sing under the note didn’t help either. ★★★★★For his last opera, written in 1972/3 when he knew he had little time left, ... Death in Venice review — an unmissable masterpiece Royal Opera House. few technical issues. These contrasts are heightened in speed and vehemence as the second act unfolds, and as Aschenbach is drawn deeper into his troubled battle between Apollonian and Dionysian impulses. Please refresh your browser or try again shortly.Royal Opera House Covent Garden Foundation, a charitable company limited here His voice is a perfect vehicle for the “austere demands of maturity.”It is a performance that should stand as a career highlight.Physically it was well-judged as well: stiff and bourgeois with one hand behind his back at the outset (“I, Aschenbach, famous as a master-writer, successful, honoured”). Vicki Mortimer’s designs aren’t touristic picturesque, however: the atmosphere is ominous with the haze of the sirocco and the chiaroscuro of the lighting reflects the darkness in Aschenbach’s mind.This isn’t a fun show for those in search of light entertainment, but it stands as an artistic achievement of rare intensity and high accomplishment.We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future. The latest offers and discount codes from popular brands on Telegraph Voucher Codes The opera is based on the novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. His Aschenbach was fragile, sometimes sentimentally girlish, other times potent and confident, bursting with creative – if not quite erotic – vigor.If this were an opera whose dramatic screw needed continuous tightening then Padmore’s rather luxurious – one is almost tempted to say indulgent – examination of his battery of vocal timbres would sink the show. Aspiring novelists are always advised by their mentors to “show, not tell”: Aschenbach ignores that wise injunction and spells everything out for us in tedious and otiose fashion. But what a troubling and troubled, wearily restless and ultimately bleak opera this is. But as Venice and Tadzio worked on him, this gave way to a looser, more expressive physicality, which finally left him crumpled in darkness against a pillar after an astounding “Phaedrus” monologue, where he bid farewell to life.

Finley’s role encompasses the mysterious harbingers of mortality and decay, all flame-haired, that Aschenbach meets: the traveller, the aging fop on the ship, the crooked gondolier, the oily hotel manager, the obsequious barber, and the gross leader of a troupe of players. Tyrrell Hatton emerges as contender for $15m FedEx Cup Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Death in Venice: A Tony Palmer Film of the Opera By Britten DVD at the best online prices at eBay! This is no reflection on Richard Farnes, whose conducting seemed to squeeze every last drop of febrile, feverish intensity from the music, but I did find Alan Oke’s first act Aschenbach just too prim, priggish and pompous to be sympathetic or even interesting. Padmore exhibited masterful dynamic control, creamy masterclass-perfect messa di voce, austere brightness, and hollow ghostliness (redolent, naturally, of Pears). Mark Padmore & Gerald Finley Are Otherworldly in Britten MasterworkDavid McVicar’s new production of Britten’s late masterpiece “Death in Venice” is a brooding and elusive meditation on the tribulations of aging creativity and its relationship to death and desire. It was first performed at Snape Maltings, near Aldeburgh, England, on 16 June 1973. Myfanwy Piper wrote the English libretto.

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