Death In Venice, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London<img src="http://www.independent.co.uk/template/ver/gfx/fourstar.gif"></img >
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference."My mind beats on," repeats Gustav von Aschenbach, over and over, at the start of Britten's opera Death in Venice, and as the extraordinary atmosphere of his questing monologue takes hold and halting clarinets take us deeper into the writer's subconscious, we are reminded yet again just how far Britten (and not Mahler) spirited us from the hammy homoeroticism of Visconti's overrated film. How ludicrous it now seems and how at odds with the mysterious internal world of Thomas Mann's novella.
That sense of the internal is heightened when no actual staging is involved, and in this minimalistically theatrical concert performance (director Kenneth Richardson) from the Philharmonia Orchestra under Richard Hickox, even the object of Aschenbach's desires, the reincarnation, perhaps, of his own youth - the boy Tadzio - is invisible to us, a figment of his imagination mirrored only in the expressions on his face.
Philip Langridge's face tells us myriad stories, not least the parts of Mann's that remain untold. Whether singing or not, whether standing behind a music stand or sitting out the extraordinary orchestral interludes that underscore his stream of consciousness, Langridge is never passive, never for even a second removed from the action - you can read his thoughts. And his thoughts, his internal monologues, are voiced in such a way as to make the singing sound uncannily close to colloquial speech.
The other figures in this mysterious landscape of the imagination were either drawn from the ranks of Philharmonia Voices or made flesh in the multi-faceted persona of Alan Opie, sporting a different coloured handkerchief for each sinister incarnation.
It sounded well, this wonderful score, though I suspect that the seductiveness of the sonorities had more to do with Britten and the Philharmonia's playing than Hickox's somewhat rudimentary direction.
It is now 30 years since Britten's own death and as his valedictory postlude came to rest on a hazy horizon of violin harmonics - a parting vision of Tadzio walking into the ocean - I was pondering if he had ever written anything more beautiful.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments