OPERA REVIEW: DEATH IN VENICE
18 Oct'10

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 5 out of 5

If fine theatre, like fine cuisine, comes from blending all the components of a dish in such a way that the final sum is greater than all of its parts, then director Yoshi Oida is the operatic equivalent of a master chef. And the Canadian Opera Company's new production of DEATH IN VENICE is a musical banquet you shouldn't miss.

A co-production with the Aldeburgh Festival, Bregenz Festival, Statni Opera Praha and Opera National de Lyon, DEATH IN VENICE hit the stage of the Four Seasons Centre Saturday — and it held its audience spellbound until the final scene was sung.

Indeed, considering that this is the operatic valedictory of British composer Benjamin Britten, who painted in a musical palette far removed from more traditional and melodic operatic fare, it is fair to say that it also left more than a few people in the audience more than a little stunned at the sheer depth of humanity this music embraces. And while much of the credit for that must indeed go to Britten, who was clearly working at the top of his form despite his failing health, it must be shared with director Oida, a true master of the unobtrusive.

With deceptive ease, he  takes Britten's score, a libretto by Myfanwy Piper based on the novella by Thomas Mann, throws in a stunning yet simple set design created by Tom Schenk , superbly lit by Paule Constable and Jane Dutton and folds in a cast of superb singers, carefully blended with a corps of equally fine dancers and just a pinch of the Japanese theatrical tradition that so fascinated the composer and then lets it all steam for just under three hours.

The result, spiced only with a certain elegance, is a production where everything seems to be in almost perfect harmony, as the story of the fatal unrequited obsession writer Gustav von Aschenbach, a celebrated German author (sung by tenor Alan Oke), develops for a young Polish boy he encounters on an impulsive trip to Venice, in the midst of a cholera epidemic.

Working on Schenk's minimalist set, Oida relies on Constable's lighting genius to create a Venice of the mind — a place awash in light and reflection, where La Serenissima's celebrated colour blossoms as rarely and elusively as melody lines in Britten's score, served up here with great skill by the COC Orchestra conducted by Steuart Bedford.

Strongly supported at every turn by baritone Peter Savidge (who tackles a multitude of roles, all of which add up to a devilish alter-ego for the struggling Aschenbach), Oke traces the proud intellectual's descent into madness with a strong passion and an understated grace. From the moment he encounters young Tadzio (performed with delicious spareness by dancer Adam Sergison), Oke uses a finely drawn vocal performance as foundation for a moving portrait of a man suddenly and inexplicably at the mercy of his senses. He is besotted not only by a single youth, but by youth itself, taunted by the gods from which he has held himself aloof and all but unnoticed by his fellow man.

But while the story pivots around the tensions of two singers and a single dancer, Oida and his team fill the stage with life, bringing the canals and piazzas of Venice to life with stunning artistry, deploying a cast of expert singers and dancers (choreographed by Daniela Kurz and Katharina Bader) to maximum effect and creating an external landscape that, while riveting, never overshadows the internal landscape around which the story is built.

Thus supported, Britten's music is a powerful revelation, the soundtrack of a tortured mind, on which the sights and sounds of the world around it are allowed to intrude but never dominate.