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A Very Joyful Production
Benjamin Britten's 'Albert Herring'
at Hampstead Garden Opera
impresses ALICE McVEIGH
Hampstead Garden Opera — unknown to me until now — is a little gem of a company in north London, and Britten's Albert Herring was a perfect vehicle for it. [Saturday 22 November 2014, matinée performance]
This is of course Britten's only comic opera (though its underlying darker notes were also given full rein under the stunningly inventive direction of Joe Austin), with a masterful deployment of a chamber orchestra (conducted with striking sensitivity to both singers and score by Oliver-John Ruthven). Of course, everything has to be economical in a space as intimate as 'Upstairs at the Gatehouse' — sets especially — but what it lost in glamour was more than compensated for by the calibre of the talent on offer, and the ingenuity with which that space was used...
Copyright © 25 November 2014
Alice McVeigh,
Kent UK
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