Page 607 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

all-male cast, Britten makes great use of musical symbolism in Curlew River such as
employing a flute to represent the ‘Madwoman’ and a French horn, the ‘Ferryman’.

Blythburgh church is ideal for such presentations as Curlew River and I fondly recall seeing a
staging of the complete Noh trilogy here by Mahogany Opera, directed by Frederic Wake-
Walker, in 2013, the year celebrating the centenary of Britten’s birth. The cast was headed by
tenor Mark Padmore with the Aurora Orchestra and Roger Vignoles as music director. In
fact, I also had the pleasure of attending the world première of the Noh trilogy at Orford
church in 1964 by the English Opera Group directed by Colin Graham and, indeed, later at
the Edinburgh Festival in St Mary's Cathedral in 1968 when the festival director, Peter
Diamand, focused on the music of Schubert and Britten.

Incidentally, Wake-Walker was brought up in Suffolk where, as a treble, he sang in three
Britten operas at Snape Maltings including, at the age of 11, Miles in The Turn of the Screw.
Now a challenging and futuristic director and producer of opera and contemporary music-
theatre, Wake-Walker’s renowned for his ground-breaking work at major international opera-
houses and in unconventional spaces, too. He was awarded Best Director at the 2019 Opera
Awards for his productions of Peter Grimes (Oper Köln) and Ariadne auf Naxos (La Scala,
Milan).

Celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, Curlew River was admirably led by Ian Bostridge
as the Madwoman with Duncan Rock (Ferryman), Marcus Farnsworth (Traveller), Matthew
Jones (Spirit of the Boy/Acolyte), Daniel Harrison (Spirit of the Boy/Acolyte), Albert Bate
(Acolyte), Willard White (Abbot/Leader of the Pilgrims) with the Pilgrims coming from the
Chorus of Britten Pears Young Artists comprising Thomas Elwin, Thomas Herford, Hugo
Brady, Jonathan Eyers, Felix Kemp, Jolyon Loy, Francis Brett, Jack Comerford while a
group of seven instrumentalists - Hannah Gillingham (flute/piccolo), George Strivens (French
horn), Luca Wadham (viola), Lucía Moreno (double-bass), Miriam Keogh (harp), Ryan
Hepburn (percussion) and Joseph Ramadan (chamber organ) - came from the Britten Pears
Young Artist Programme, led by Audrey Hyland, who, incidentally, was staff pianist on
BPYAP courses, a role first undertaken by Viola Tunnard.

Casually dressed in their day-to-day clothes, T-shirts, jeans and the like, Curlew
River solemnly opens with group of Monks gathering at the back of the church in order to
ceremonial process along Blythburgh’s long and imposing nave under the gaze of a host of
elegantly-carved wooden angels with outstretched wings, chanting the plainsong ’Te lucis
ante terminum’ (‘To Thee before the close of day’) an old Latin hymn (which also opens the
other two works in the Noh trilogy) before robing in front of the chancel to enact the Mystery
Play.

In fact, most of the stage action was centred upon the nave and Blythburgh has an extended
nave to many of its neighbouring churches therefore I felt that Deborah Warner’s production
worked well in such an intimate and confined space while the musical forces found space in
the south aisle by the chancel. At the work’s première the instrumentalists comprised Richard
Adeney (flute), Neill Sanders (French horn), Cecil Aronowitz (viola), Stuart Knussen
(double-bass), Osian Ellis (harp), Philip Ledger (chamber organ) and James Blades,
percussion, comprising five small untuned drums, five small bells and one large-tuned gong.

A small, exceptional and gifted cast was led by Ian Bostridge as the Madwoman. Shabbily
dressed in a lemon-green dress and dark jacket, a broken umbrella is held in one hand and