Latest news with #Britten
Spectator
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
A startling inversion of the original opera: The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor in Aix en Provence reviewed
On the continent this summer, new operas from two of Britain's most important composers. Oliver Leith likes guns, animals and dissolving sickly sweet sounds in acid baths of microtonality. In one recent orchestral work, the conductor becomes a pistol-wielding madman; his next, Garland, a vast pageant premiering on 18 September at Bold Tendencies, Peckham, sees a horse become a musician. He's 35 and already has a school. Listen out for it – in the London new-music scene you can't move for Leithians. The telltale sign is the sound of twisting metal: shiny pitches that warp and bend until brittle. He's English but in an outsidery way – jokey, gentle, sad, eccentric. The opposite of arch, insidery Benjamin Britten. But opposites attract and Aix's artistic director Pierre Audi – in one of his last creative decisions before his death in May – made a smart move to commission Leith to adapt Britten's seafaring epic Billy Budd. What we get is a startling inversion of the original opera. Where Britten goes XXL, giving himself the biggest canvas he can (70-strong cast, 70-odd-piece orchestra), Leith restricts himself to a postage stamp of sonic possibility (six singers, four musicians all playing keyboards or percussion). Where Britten ushers in gale-force threat, Leith is still and withdrawn, like a tide that's suddenly gone out. Where Britten is precise, Leith is carefully careless. (Some of the most striking musical drama blooms from simple walls of ill-behaved whistling or the subtle chaos of a thundersheet, slowly stroked.) In other words where Britten offers a proper operatic man-of-war – oaky, brutish, immaculately rigged – Leith presents a wispy ghost ship, almost digital in its evanescence, a 16-bit HMS Indomitable, pixelated and threadbare, bobbing along in dense mist, its harmonic sails in tatters. Out go the thick slashes of darkness; in come pure neons. Every tinkly, glisteny metal thing a percussionist could possibly get their hands on is here. It's the kind of palette you might put together if you were scoring the Teletubbies, not a Napoleonic-era tragedy of the high seas. It should be stupid as hell. It somehow isn't. There's a hallucinatory quality to the bright chimes and cloudy throbbing synths that speaks beautifully to the confused morals and heightened desires of this delirious, unhappy crew. Like Leith, director Ted Huffman takes the opera to places Britten never dared. Though it was in effect Britten's coming-out opera – Beecham had nicknamed it 'Twilight of the Sods' – the gay element was sublimated in a way that could offer the composer plausible deniability. Huffman cuts to the chase and makes it explicit. It's a sign of how right the move is that when a kiss comes between Budd and the sailor who will soon betray him it feels inevitable, swept up as it is in a moment of real musical ecstasy. A master of old-school ensemble theatre in the Peter Brook mould, Huffman moves things along economically and expertly. (He's also shaved 45 minutes off the original and you barely notice.) The cast are excellent (Joshua Bloom's hypnotic Claggart, the standout), the musicians heroic in juggling bits of acting and singing with their multifarious musical demands. More characters all at sea in Rebecca Saunders's first opera Lash – Acts of Love. And at the Deutsche Oper Berlin première, conducted by Saunders's partner Enno Poppe, you could really feel it. We open in freefall: vast liquid glissandi behaving like monstrous water chutes sliding the music straight into strange electronic static. K (and N, S, A – they're all one person) is on the threshold of death. She struggles to speak, then vomits up a parade of putrefied memories about hair and skin and sex. The words, derived from an original text by artist and author Ed Atkins, are a plotless tour de force, 'violent, emetic, immoderate, improper, impure', as Jonathan Meades wrote of Atkins's extraordinary novel Old Food. In Act Two body parts and love and longing are each addressed in a messed up memento mori. Transcendence sweeps in, through rapturous, convulsive duets, trios and quartets that entangle the four selves. It's Bosch-like, a danse macabre, funny and vulgar, and the directors at Dead Centre might have had far more fun with it had Saunders – in a rare misstep – not dictated so much of what happens on stage, including instructions for live videography. (Theatres, I beg you: put your cameras away.) No matter. Saunders's music is so full of expressive force, the text can afford to forgo story, the stage all visual interest. As in so many great operas, the score contains the drama. And here Saunders proves that she is not only the great genius of dramatic momentum, of subduction and eruption – her soundworld sits on thrillingly volatile faultlines – but also an intuitively lyrical composer. She even gives the four corpses a ravishing final a capella. If you don't like to be swallowed up or spat out, it may not be the opera for you. But for the rest of us, what an auspicious operatic debut this was.
Times
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
The 5 best country house opera festivals — an expert's guide
As much of a summer fixture as Ascot or Wimbledon — but with grunting tennis players and whinnying horses swapped for more melodious sounds — Britain's country house opera festivals are in full swing. Taking place in and among some of the most beautiful estates and grounds in England, the specifics may change but some things are constant: quality performers, bucolic spots to have a picnic in a dinner interval, and the strong allure of something fizzy to drink, whether it's champagne or sparkling elderflower. • Read more opera reviews, guides and interviews I've been lucky enough to be able to visit most of these festivals. But what are the differences between them — and how do you get the best from your experience? Read my last-minute guide, and do contribute in the comments with your favourite recommendations and tips. Centered on a Tudorbethan pile that has been in the hands of the Christie family since the 1830s, the Glyndebourne Festival is (gently) steered today by the present ruling Christie, Gus, who is the executive chairman. History repeated itself when he married the soprano Danielle de Niese — his grandfather, John, who founded the festival, was also married to a soprano, Audrey Mildmay — and the chatelaine usually headlines an opera production every other year. (Their elder child, Bacchus, has already appeared on stage in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream.) There are three restaurants, a ha-ha and sheep frolicking on nearby fields — it's the motherlode of English summer opera. Perhaps surprisingly, value: the Glyndebourne theatre has a wider range of ticket prices than the other festivals, but you need to be logging on when booking opens in the spring to get a sniff at the cheaper ones. In for a penny … this year the company put on its first production of Parsifal, Wagner's mystical swansong, winning particular acclaim for the conducting of its (increasingly mystical himself) music director Robin Ticciati. Don't expect to be able to get a taxi from Lewes station without booking it — things can get brutal in that queue as black tie-wearing opera buffs slug it out for the few remaining cars. The smart choice is to reserve a seat on Glyndebourne's coach. To Aug 24; • Sathnam Sanghera: Can a trip to Glyndebourne make me like opera? Confusingly, not in Garsington, Oxfordshire, although the festival started there. Since 2011 it has been a few miles down the road, across the Buckinghamshire border, in the Wormsley estate of Mark Getty (yes, of those Gettys). The glass-paned theatre has won awards and rightly so, fitting in snugly into the Chilterns landscape. The festival has scored some great artistic successes in the past year — helped by a fertile relationship co-producing shows with the Santa Fe festival in New Mexico — and recently opened new studios for rehearsal and education work. If you recognise the picturesque cricket ground, it's most likely from scenes filmed for Downton Abbey. Friendliness. More intimate than Glyndebourne but still with huge grounds to explore, it's the sort of place where you can have odd chats with strangers while dodging froglets by the lake, and the artistic director, the conductor Douglas Boyd, makes it his business to be a cheery public ambassador for the company. The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky's thriller-cum-ghost story, is hard to stage well, but Jack Furness has done an excellent job, as has Boyd in the pit. Don't leave your sandwiches, or even any small children, unattended for a minute — they will get carried off by the increasingly feral, ever more gigantic and completely unafraid red kites. To Jul 22; • Read more opera reviews, guides and interviews Wasfi Kani's opera festival began life in Hampshire — at the Grange, near Alresford, which now has its own festival, see below — before decamping to the Surrey estate inherited by Bamber Gascoigne from an eccentric reclusive aunt, the Duchess of Roxburghe. Inside the crumbling, mostly Jacobean mansion Kani salvaged treasures that included the liveries of the duchess's servants; in the grounds she raised enough money to build a new theatre from scratch, which happened in less than a year. Visitors can now choose between eating in the restaurant — in some of the less dilapidated rooms of the house — or picnicking in the walled gardens. Big names. Bryn Terfel is a regular visitor; this year it's Simon Keenlyside, playing his namesake Simon Boccanegra in Verdi's dark drama. All respect to Keenlyside, but the hidden gem of the season is Tchaikovsky's timely Mazeppa, rarely performed in the west, and set in a pivotal era of Ukrainian history. The Times awarded it five stars. This might be a bit infra dig, but you can actually slope off to the pub in the dinner interval (if you don't fancy an M&S quiche in a freezing marquee). The very agreeable Duke of Wellington is only a 15-minute walk away. To July 13; This was the home of Grange Park Opera, which pitched its tents by an idyllic Greek revivalist estate that had been saved from destruction by its owners, the Barings, by English Heritage (who now run it on their behalf, an arrangement I'm not sure anyone understands). Then when GPO went north to Surrey, a new regime took over and they have put on a more varied range of entertainment in the bijou theatre, converted from the house's old orangery. Expect to find more dance and jazz than at other opera festivals; this year — clutch your pearls — there's even a night devoted to the music of Queen and Freddie Mercury. The most remote and rural-feeling of the main festivals, this one has some dazzling views, whether of unbroken Hampshire countryside or the neoclassical mansion set against fields and meadows. Imported from France comes a new version of Rameau's Les Indes Galantes, with hip-hop-inspired choreography. Whatever it costs to get one of the elite Ivanhoe-style tents surely must be worth it. Be a princess for the day. To Jul 6; The invention of Martin Graham, who turned his barn into a 500-seat auditorium, this Gloucestershire redoubt has a truly splendid view over the Cotswolds countryside and a theatre topped by statues of Wagner, Verdi and Mozart. Yes, it's the apogee of English eccentricity, but artistic standards have been rising every year and the company's 2024 Ring cycle was a seriously impressive achievement. Normally Wagner, although this year they have swapped the composer's epic dramas for a contemporary work about the Wagner family, Wahnfried. The new production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas will be expanded with other Purcellian numbers, provided by the virtuosic yet earthy players of Barokksolistene. Inexplicably, some patrons have been seen having their quiches in the car park, even though there's one of the best views in England from the picnic lawn just round the Aug 2; Nevill Holt in Leicestershire no longer puts opera at the forefront of its festival, though it did team up with Opera North for a well received Così fan tutte this summer. Waterperry, near Oxford, has a rising reputation for bringing on young artists, and this year's forthcoming production of Handel's Semele also comes to Holland Park in west London. Dorset Opera Festival sets its stall at Bryanston, usually offering an interesting rarity (though this year it's populist Verdi, Puccini and Mascagni). Finally, Wild Arts has its cake and eats it — the Essex-based company packs its bags and heads from idyllic spot to spot, venues including Elveden Hall in Norfolk and Childerley Hall in Cambridgeshire.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Yahoo
Man charged in connection with child's death in MD released on bond despite prosecutors' ask
To the dismay of Maryland prosecutors, the boyfriend of a woman charged with murder in the death of her 3-year-old daughter has been released from jail. Cedrick Britten, 44, was charged on June 11 with accessory to first- and second-degree murder after the fact, failure to report child death and "other related criminal charges" for his role in the death of Nola Dinkins, Maryland State Police said. On June 12, prosecutors in Cecil County, Maryland, requested that Britten, 44, be held on no bond. A county district court judge denied the request and instead gave Britten $75,000 cash bail and home detention, the Office of the States Attorney for Cecil County said in a news release. Britten, who Delaware court documents say was in a relationship with Dinkins' mother, was released from custody after posting bond. Dinkins' mother, Darrian Randle, has been charged with murder and a litany of other offenses in Maryland. She was also charged with felony lying to police in Delaware and remains in a New Castle County prison on $1 million cash bond. She awaits extradition to Maryland. Got a tip? Send to Isabel Hughes at ihughes@ For all things breaking news, follow her on Twitter at @izzihughes_ Send tips or story ideas to Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299 or eparra@ This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Man charged in connection with child's death in MD released on bond
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Miami Herald
12-06-2025
- Miami Herald
Mom reported 3-year-old was abducted, now she's charged with murder, MD cops say
Two people are charged in connection to the death of a 3-year-old girl in Maryland. On June 10, Darrian Randle, 31, reported to police that her 3-year-old daughter was kidnapped at gunpoint, according to a Facebook post by the New Castle County Police. Randle told officers she pulled over when her daughter Nola became upset and a man came to her vehicle with a gun and took Nola, police said. An Amber Alert was issued for the girl. However, the alert was canceled after multiple agencies began an investigation and determined Randle had lied about the abduction, according to police. Then, after further investigation, authorities found human remains in a vacant lot in North East, a June 11 news release from the Maryland State Police said. The human remains found are consistent with that of a young girl, but authorities are waiting for autopsy results to confirm if it's Nola. Randle is charged with first- and second-degree murder, first-degree child abuse resulting in death of a minor under 13, and other related charges, state police said. She is in custody at the New Castle County Division of Police awaiting extradition. Cedrick Antoine Britten, 44, is also charged. Britten is believed to be Randle's boyfriend, WBAL reported. He is charged with accessory to first- and second-degree murder after the fact, failure to report child death and other related charges, according to the Maryland State Police. Britten is in police custody in Maryland. Attorney information for Randle and Britten was unavailable. In an interview with investigators, Randle told them she beat her daughter to death, court records said, according to WCAU. 'Randle confessed to physically striking [her daughter] with a belt approximately 15 - 20 times about her body,' the station reported based on court documents. Randle said Nola was unresponsive, so she and Britten put her in Britten's car and drove around, according to court records, WCAU reported. They then went back home and put her body in a suitcase before Britten later dropped it off at a park, the court documents said. The human remains that investigators found were 'consistent with an emaciated child' and wrapped in plastic wrap, WBAL reported. 'We just can't fathom how a human being can do this to another human being,' neighbor Chad Marshall told the news outlet. 'Hopefully, they get what they deserve as far as jail time and justice is served for the little girl.'
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem, Winter Words (arr Holloway), etc album review – confirms Gardner's status as an outstanding conductor of Britten
If Edward Gardner's performances and recording of Peter Grimes had not already firmly established his credentials as an outstanding Britten conductor, then this collection, taken from Gardner's concerts with the London Philharmonic at the Festival Hall in London and at Saffron Hall in Saffron Walden, superbly confirms them. It contains an outstanding account of one Britten's greatest orchestral achievements, the Sinfonia da Requiem, and a fine one of a suite (Gardner's own selection) from Britten's only full-length ballet, The Prince of the Pagodas, together with the first recording of a fascinating orchestration by Robin Holloway of Britten's Thomas Hardy song cycle Winter Words. In a note on his orchestrations, Holloway declares that Winter Words is his favourite among Britten's song cycles and that Britten and Hardy 'seem made for each other'. But in its general tone and subject matter – nature, the changing seasons, and man's place among them – and Britten's treatment of them there's an introspection and intimacy, which doesn't automatically suggest the large scale 'public' exposure of an orchestral song cycle. But Holloway's interventions are wonderfully discreet and subtly imaginative, especially in his use of the marimba and xylophone, and tenor Nicky Spence's careful performance certainly respects that. (Not available on Apple music and Spotify)
