Page 578 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

23 June 2024

Curlew River, Aldeburgh Festival ★★★★★

The Aldeburgh Festival roams far and wide in its musical programming but, like a homing pigeon,
constantly circles back to its roots in the music of Benjamin Britten, and in the flat, light-drenched
landscape of coastal Suffolk that inspired him. Yesterday it presented his church parable Curlew
River, a Christianised version of a Japanese tale, in Blythburgh Church. The glowing white walls
caught in the evening sunlight and the carved wooden angels above cast a spell, even before a note
had sounded.

The story of a Madwoman who encounters a Ferryman and a group of Travellers, and who learns
from them the fate of her missing son that she’s searched for everywhere is simplicity itself, as was
this excellent production by Deborah Warner. Christof Hetzer’s design centred on a rough wooden
walkway, leading to a raised platform, which needed only a few props – a raised oar, two boys idly
fishing – to suggest a ferry. Monks chanting a Latin prayer, sung by a chorus of Britten Pears
Young Artists processed slowly to the platform, where by donning a simple tunic they were
transformed into the Travellers. The Abbot played with warm-hearted dignity by Willard White
entreated us to be ready for a miracle.

Curlew River at Aldeburgh Festival CREDIT: Britten Pears Arts

All this was austere and dignified, as one expects, but the drama itself was rougher and stonier
than I’ve ever seen it. Ian Bostridge was superb as the Madwoman, clutching her soiled sleeping
bag like any distressed homeless person, that well-known fluty tenor voice cracked with grief. The
Ferryman, played by Duncan Rock, pulled the Madwoman onto the ferry with a shocking lack of
sympathy, and the Travellers jeered at her strange story. To one side a group of Young Artist
Programme instrumentalists incisively directed by Audrey Hyland shadowed the voices’ rise and
fall in uncanny sounds of harp, high organ and sharp, sinister horn calls.