Albert Herring

Corn Exchange, Haddington, 5/9/24

 Scottish Opera: Benjamin Britten – Albert Herring, Scottish Opera Orchestra, conductor, William Cole

It was a delight to return to the Lammermuir Festival for the opening night of a new production of Britten’s early opera ‘Albert Herring.’ After the trials and tribulations of last year’s on/off drama involving Creative Scotland and the Festival, it is wonderful to see the Festival getting this year’s programme off to a spectacular start. Britten’s comedy is a piece very much of its time, set in a small town in Suffolk, with a libretto and a plot which can seem extremely dated to modern ears, but with a message about the triumph of youthful adventure in the face of stifling authority which is timeless and apposite.

I have an odd relationship with the opera. When still a student myself, I spent a summer at the Britten-Pears School at Snape Maltings in Suffolk, working on a production of ‘Albert Herring’. The producer was Eric Crozier, who had, in 1946, adapted Guy de Maupassant’s novella, Le Rosier de Madame Husson, given it a Suffolk setting, and worked with Britten to turn it into a comic opera. His wife, Nancy Evans, who was the first Nancy in the premiere at Glyndebourne in June 1947, was also part of the teaching staff, as of course was the original Albert, Sir Peter Pears. Joan Cross, the original Lady Billows, popped in from time to time. I, at the ripe old age of 24, worked on the bass role of Superintendent Budd, a part full of comedy and pompous stupidity, but also the character who comes up with the idea of a King of the May in the first place, setting in motion all the events of the plot. With this fantastic coaching from several of the original protagonists, I assumed I would be playing Superintendent Budd for ever, but never sang the role again! Such are the strange vagaries of an operatic career!

Daisy Evans has put together a delightful production of the opera, with a predominantly youthful cast, in the space of a very short time indeed, although one would never know from the polished performance of the cast on this first night in Haddington. The Corn Exchange has only recently been refurbished and turned into a performing venue, under the auspices of the Brunton Theatre in Musselburgh, and it was packed for this premiere. The idea of a village hall production, with minimal sets and props, was present throughout the show, and the feeling of an amateur performance (although enormously professional) permeated the evening. It will be interesting to see how it transfers to the much bigger stages at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow (18 and 22 October) and the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh (13 November). In Haddington, the orchestra and conductor were on the same level as the audience, with the cast playing on a tiny stage above, using the actual doors of the Corn Exchange.

At first, I was worried about the balance. Britten used 13 players and 13 singers in the opera, but even 13 instruments can make a lot of noise in a confined space, and the singers struggled to be heard at the beginning. Whether that balance adjusted itself or whether we became more accustomed to it as the piece went on, it seemed to me that, by the interval, it had sorted itself out and the problems disappeared. The conductor was William Cole, in his Scottish Opera debut, and he presided over a clean and articulate performance from the virtuosic orchestra, who all played as if their lives depended on it.

The cast was exemplary, led by a stand out performance from Glen Cunningham as Albert. This young Scottish tenor has caught the eye recently in Edinburgh, as a superb soloist in the ERCU Messiah in the Usher Hall, and particularly as Francis Flute in Scottish Opera’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ In the last couple of years he has been part of the Opera Studio at the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, and one can already see his progress as an artist. The voice is first class, easy throughout the registers and with a thrilling top, and his acting is superb. His Albert was in turns shy, gauche, nervous, gradually assertive, dashing and finally triumphant. I am a good friend of the definitive Albert of my generation, John Graham Hall, and I can confidently predict that Glen Cunningham will prove to be the Albert of this generation!

Speaking of my generation, the two more ‘mature’ members of the cast, Susan Bullock and Jamie MacDougall, were excellent in their roles as Lady Billows and Mr Upfold, the Mayor. Mr MacDougall is splendid as the self-important head of the town, who never uses one word when three will suffice! Ms Bullock brings all her experience as a Wagnerian soprano to take the roof off the Corn Exchange, and her Lady Billows is excruciating in her holier than thou, infuriating pomposity and officiousness. In an ensemble piece like ‘Albert Herring’, it seems invidious to single out anyone from a terrific team, but I was particularly taken with Edward Jowle as Superintendent Budd and Francis Church, as Mr Gedge, the vicar. Mr Jowle possesses an excellent bass voice, with good stage presence, although his accent suggested he was on secondment from the Derbyshire Police Force, rather than a local Suffolk lad. For me, Francis Church had the stand out voice of the minor characters, an easy high baritone with a cutting edge that made every word clear, even with the very helpful surtitles on either side of the stage. Incidentally, congratulations for providing surtitles, as, with the best will in the world, some words do get lost in the mix, and the audience really appreciated the chance to understand every word. The American Kira Kaplan, as Miss Wordsworth the school teacher, a fabulous soprano, dominated the ensembles with her easy high notes and pert character on stage. 

I thought Daisy Evans’ production worked very well, and the audience was in fits of laughter throughout. There were only a couple of missteps.

I assume, with such a short rehearsal period, that actual schoolchildren, as Emmie, Cis and Harry, were impossible to fit in, but the change from naughty primary kids (as envisaged by Crozier and Britten) to sleazy teenage slatterns, who steal money from the cash box, and smoke and drink until they puke, didn’t work at all, and made the song for the May Day Festival (which they get wrong) and the little speeches for the children, lose their point. Updating is all very well but changing the nature of the characters seems to me a mistake.

I also didn’t see the point of turning the May Day Feast into a sort of drunken orgy. Unlike the party in Act 3 of ‘Peter Grimes’, which exposes the hypocrisy of the virtuous townsfolk, many of whom turn out to be lecherous drunkards, the prim characters in ‘Albert Herring’ really are terribly prim, and this is what Albert is fighting against. The prevalence of sly bottles of spirits during the feast, and Budd and Mrs Herring ending up in bed, are contrary to the characters we see earlier in the opera. They actually are shocked by the apparently licentious behaviour of the young people in the village, and it’s this attitude that Albert (and Sid and Nancy) are trying to change.

On the whole though, the production worked very well, and all the characters, however over the top, were excellently drawn, and provided lots of laughs for the capacity audience. I thoroughly enjoyed my evening, and, in Glen Cunningham, Scotland has a real star in the operatic firmament.    

Photo Credit: Sally Jubb