Albert Herring - Aldeburgh Festival (17.6.86)

It is hard to imagine a more appropriate opera for the Aldeburgh Festival than Albert Herring.  It is rooted in the Suffolk countryside - Britten's own land - which drew the composer back from America to found an international music event in an obscure and tiny fishing village.  The opera's principal theme is of youth asserting itself as an individual against an apparently immutable social order.  This requires a minutely-detailed depiction of that world.  Loxford and its representatives - aristocracy, church, civic officers and law enforcement - are presented as elements of an exact social order, each with well-defined places in a hierarchy.  The whole ritual of choosing a May Queen - May King as it turns out - is ritualised affirmation of the values of stability - chastity, sobriety, modesty - which all in that hierarchy depend on.  Albert is not just a man on the razzle; he represents the threat of the rising generation which will eventually overturn the old regime.

At first sight, Peter Grimes would be the prime candidate for a quintessentially Suffolkian work.  But paradoxically, its basis in an authentic local story, retold by Crabbe, places too many constraints on the librettist and composer.  With Albert Herring, the second-hand nature of the plot - derived from a Maupassant story - allowed a far greater freedom, and hence a greater fidelity to the locale.

The fact that Grimes is a tragedy and Herring a comedy is also crucial.  Although many are embarrassed by the forced humour, feeble jokes and corny rhymes, it remains true that comedy has to be tied down to such specifics - nobody ever laughed at a generalised joke.  Similarly, the essence of tragedy is that it transcends particulars and deals with the universal: the tragedy of overweening pride, of thwarted love.  Thus Grimes tells you nothing about Suffolk, only about the terrible power of storms - which might be anywhere.  Herring, on the other hand, is more intimately concerned with the petty traumas of putting on fetes, of singing in tune, of making speeches; its humour says little about the eternal verities.  In fact, it is only when it strays across the boundary, and touches deeper nerves that Albert Herring does move us more directly, as when Albert longs to dare, longs to do.

There was thus a satisfying concordance between the almost all-pervasive inner sunshine of the opera, and the balmy summer's day outside.  It was easy to believe that Loxford was only just down the road from Snape, and that at any moment the singers would leave the hall and go there.  The fact that the singers were almost entirely young was equally apt.  Their voices were fresh and exulted in their growing power - just as Albert and the other young people do in the opera.  Similarly, the orchestra was no tired collection of London hacks, but had more youthful fingers.

Quite simply, the opera was a delight.  Aside from the bright burnish of their voices, many of the singers showed great potential.  Superintendent Budd was particularly well-acted - nice to see Mr Harding, be it Alan or Alistair, making his way in the world.  And Lady Billows had a thrilling voice, even if it inclined to squall.  However, it was hard to take her admonitions totally seriously since she looked like Madonna in a bustle. 

(19.6.86)

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