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Britten, Owen Wingrave: Soloists, Chicago Children's Chorus, and Orchestra of Chicago Opera Theater, Steuart Bedford (conductor) Harris Theater, Chicago 22.5.2009 (JLZ)

Cast:

Owen Wingrave: Matthew Worth
Spencer Coyle: Matt Boehler
Lechmere: Brian Anderson
Miss Wingrave: Mary Jane Johnson
Mrs. Coyle: Rebecca Caine
Mrs. Julian: Brenda Harris
Kate Julian: Jennifer Johnson
Gen. Sir Philip Wingrave: Robin Leggate/a>
Production:
Conductor: Steuart Bedford
Director: Ken Cazan
Set Designer: Peter Harrison
Costume Designer: Jacqueline Saint Anne
Lighting Designer: Keith Parham

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) has been an important part of the repertoire of Chicago Opera Theater for some time and the current season's inclusion of the composer's penultimate opera, Owen Wingrave, brings to its stage an excellent production of this work. Originally composed  in response to a commission from the BBC for a television opera, Owen Wingrave is removed from its original conception as  a film through being presented as a live performance,  with a chamber orchestra reduction by the British composer David Matthews in lieu of the original scoring for recording in a television studio.  (Britten himself also envisioned the piece as a chamber opera, according to the programme notes.) While Owen Wingrave is available on DVD in various formats, it takes a staged performance like this to bring the score to life through  engagement with the audience. In this particular instance, Chicago Opera Theater deserves congratulations for its uniformly excellent cast, seamless production, and extraordinarily effective stage direction.

Completed in 1970 and first broadcast in 1971, Owen Wingrave is based on the short story of the same name by Henry James, with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper. Piper's libretto is closer the the text of the short story James published in 1892 than the author's dramatic version of the work as The Saloon, which he completed in 1908. With its pacifist theme  - the challenge of pursuing peace in a militarist culture -  the opera is in a sense the product of its time, when opposition to the Vietnam War found voice in various media. In this case, Britten's response is an elegant one, which endures beyond the editorials, rallies, marches, and sit-ins of the day. Yet it is also an opera which betrays other influences, including the choice of source material from Henry James, a source that Britten had also used in his earlier opera, The Turn of the Screw. Additionally, the title character Owen Wingrave resembles the  castigated hero Billy Budd in Britten's opera of the same name. Other influences are also evident, with Britten's use of orchestral interludes between vocal scenes calling to mind both Peter Grimes and Alban Berg's Wozzeck, which shares with Owen Wingrave the twelve-tone approach to composition that each composer had taken. Lastly,  Owen Wingrave was designed as a television opera, exactly like the groundbreaking Amahl and the Night Visitors by Giancarlo Menotti. These influences set a helpful context for hearing Owen Wingrave, which is a very challenging work, perhaps even because of its complex origins.

In this fine production, baritone Matthew Worth stands out for his committed and convincing portrayal of Owen Wingrave himself. This  young singer personified the title character from the opening of scene through to the opera's conclusion. Not only did he sing the role well, but his stage presence and his body language contributed to his aural characterization at every turn. His diction was notable for its clarity in the solo passages as well as those in which other characters' lines intersect with his. In a work like this, which includes extended declamatory sections,  Worth's approach was ideal for conveying the whole text - the sense of what is being said as well as the words themselves. Worth's voice, which has a nice, polished timbre throughout,  was particularly suited to the lyrical passages. He was particularly effective work in the opening scene at Spencer Coyle's military school in London's Bayswater district, which requires immediate projection of the dramatic situation.  Emotional conflict is apparent at once; Wingrave  expresses his intention not to pursue his family's tradition of an army career while Coyle sees great military potential in his student.

As Coyle, Matt Boehler was also very effective. With a lighter sound than Worth's, though the character was originally cast for a bass-baritone,  Boehler  brought a fine touch to the role as a sympathetic, rather than antagonistic mentor. He not only worked well with Matthew Worth, but also with Rebecca Caine, who portrayed his character's wife. As a kind of foil for the women at Paramore, the Wingrave family estate, Mrs. Coyle expresses sometimes contrary reactions to the situation surrounding Owen, and Caine brought great sensitivity to those passages. As Kate Julian,  daughter of the widowed Mrs. Julian, a family friend of the Wingraves, Jennifer Johnson was quite moving, particularly in scene before the tragic climax of the opera in which Owen is found dead after sleeping in a haunted room. Her emotional intensity - everyone hopes she will marry Owen but she declares him a coward after his refusal to join the army - was apparent throughout her entire register and especially in the lower notes. Her portrayal brought real dimensionality to a character who is less delineated in Henry James's short story.  The tension between Worth's Owen and Johnson's Kate was palpable, and  led the audience convincingly into the finale. Kate's genuine remorse at having forced Owen to sleep in the doomed chamber contributed a sense of loss to the ending, which would otherwise have been the monochromatic. Yet even at the conclusion, Worth's persona as Owen hovered around the stage, like the ghosts of his forebears evoked and depicted at various points in the opera. The actors who portrayed the ancient Wingraves added to the opera through their silent presence, while the Chicago Children's Chorus was nicely prominent, although unseen, in the second act.

The production itself made the opera work well on stage using minimal sets and efficient scene changes. In fact, the somewhat spare sets fit the production very well, so that the audience could concentrate on the dramatic focus of each of the scenes. The set also allowed the performers to move easily on stage as they interacted with each other and responded to the theatrical blocking plan. More than that, the design neatly matched Britten's intention  for the work to become a staged chamber-ensemble piece as well as a TV opera, by bringing  out the conversational structure of the work. This, in turn, enhanced the outstanding performances by the entire cast, which emerged well in the ensembles, that punctuate the opera. The united condemnation of Owen by the family at Paramore was especially poignant as they literally cast the young man down.

This production also deserves praise for its engagement of Steuart Bedford as conductor, since he led the premiere of the work for television. His intimate knowledge of the score was always apparent in elegant approach to the orchestra, which emerged more prominently when necessary while balancing the voices nicely in the dramatic scenes. His tempos matched the text exactly, so that the libretto benefited enormously from appropriately emphasised enunciation. The sense of authenticity and his engagement of the score was self-evident throughout the whole performance. As relevant as this production is at a time when apparently ceaseless wars and conflicts may be found around the globe, the message of the work is timeless - declarations of committed pacificism can still be courageous actions especially in the face of violent opposition.  Any one interested in this message and others simply interested in Britten's music  will find this Owen Wingrave an excellent production.

James L Zychowicz

Pictures © Chicago Opera Theater

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