Even near-unconditional admirers of Britten’s music, such as
I am, would probably admit that Death in Venice takes
a little while to get going. “My mind beats on”, sings Gustav
von Aschenbach, whilst in this production apparently trying
to climb a wall of books. A little later we find him in a cemetery,
surrounded again by monumental piles of learned volumes. Aschenbach
is a blocked writer, and needs little encouragement from the
Traveller, appearing from behind a grave to encourage him to
head south to find inspiration. Some disturbing encounters follow.
The Elderly Fop, the Gondolier who rows him to his hotel, the
Hotel Manager and even, later, the Hotel Barber, all seem determined
that his life will take a negative turn. In reality, these characters
are all one and the same, and are played by the same singer.
John Shirley-Quirk was unforgettable in the opera’s early days,
as he is on the Decca recording conducted, owing the composer’s
ill health, by Steuart Bedford. Scott Hendricks is outstanding
here, though his view of the part is quite different from that
of the older singer. No doubt in line with the view of stage
director, Pier Luigi Pizzi, there is a more explicit sexual
element to the role, with a fair amount of physical contact.
And then, as the opera progresses, we realise that these characters
are not simply agents of fate; rather, they play an active part
in Aschenbach’s destruction. The Hotel Manager, in the closing
minutes of the opera, seems to set in train the events which
will lead to Aschenbach’s death, and once he is satisfied that
this has been achieved, he snaps his pen shut with obvious satisfaction
at a job well done. I don’t think I’d want to spend much time
in this hotel when there is so much of Nick Shadow about the
man at the top! He sings well, with a more forceful and less
insinuating tone than Shirley-Quirk brought to the part.
The part of Aschenbach was composed for Peter Pears, and it
fitted him like a glove, both musically and dramatically. Pears
was able to bring a lifetime of experience to the final monologue,
where Aschenbach muses on poetry, beauty and the senses, making
it all the more moving. Marlin Miller can’t quite achieve that,
well though he sings the part. He is also a fine actor, only
occasionally over-playing facial expressions, and even then
it would probably not come over as such in the theatre. The
opera turns on the developing relationship – “if so one-sided
an affair can be called a relationship” – between the troubled,
aging writer and Tadzio, the beautiful son of a Polish family
he encounters at his hotel. It is clear from the libretto that
Tadzio is a child – an adolescent boy, it is reasonable to think
– and here we have the major problem in this staging. To put
it bluntly, Aschenbach is too young and Tadzio is too old. Beautiful
he certainly is, and he walks around with an almost feline grace.
There can be little doubt that Britten would have been less
interested in setting the story had Tadzio been an adult, and
there really is nothing childlike about Tadzio here. The part
was conceived for a dancer, and Alessandro Riga is very fine.
But I am troubled by the fact that when dancing with his friends
there is little to set him apart from the others, either in
his costume or in his role in the dance. There seems less reason,
therefore, for Aschenbach to become so infatuated with him.
He is very aloof, and necessarily so, but there are meant to
be moments of interaction between the two, and they tend to
go for little in this production. Aschenbach declares his love
for Tadzio just before the curtain falls at the end of Act 1,
and this follows the words “Ah! don’t smile like that! No-one
should be smiled at like that.” Here, Tadzio smiles not at Aschenbach,
but at his own mother. This seems of a piece with a view of
the work that says that Aschenbach’s fate is the result of the
actions of everybody but Tadzio. Even the Strawberry
Seller, passing for the second time with her “soft, musty, over-ripe”
fruit, a symbol of the sickness invading the city, enters the
scene apparently with the specific intention that Aschenbach
will take her putrefying wares.
A few other observations about the production seem worthwhile.
The hotel guests, tourists, pavement café entertainment audience
and so on, are sung by the chorus as required by the score,
but from the pit. Their roles are mimed onstage. This works
better in some places than in others. The Hotel Manager proudly
shows Aschenbach the view from his room, accompanied by a few
bars of music little short of miraculous. We do not see the
whole stage on the screen, but I don’t think there’s any view
to speak of, so the moment loses much of its impact. The Voice
of Apollo, sung off-stage by Razek-François Bitar, seems too
distant in Act 1, and the voice of Dionysus in Act 2 is revealed
to be none other than the Hotel Manager! A suspended cross with
the Polish family kneeling in line is a sufficient and highly
effective way of suggesting their attendance at Mass. The English
Clerk from the travel bureau, he who finally informs Aschenbach
of the true situation regarding the spread of cholera in the
city, appears to have no office, but conducts his business in
the street. There are, indeed, quite a few events that take
place in indeterminate places, neither on the beach, nor in
the hotel.
The choreography is by Gheorghe Iancu, and I wasn’t taken by
it on the whole. This is probably no more than personal taste,
yet in spite of the fact that the scenario is clear and detailed
I wasn’t always sure what was going on. There is little triumph
at Tadzio’s victory, for example, and the mockery of Tadzio
by his friends, a key event in the closing minutes of the opera,
seems tame indeed. Set and décor are fine, though Venice is
very grey, a contrast to the tourist images that accompany the
opening credits. The orchestral playing under Bruno Bartoletti
can’t be faulted, though the sound is a little recessed, and
there is more colour in the orchestration than one would think
from this DVD. Indeed, there is more colour overall in Death
in Venice, and even after the sublime threnody that closes
the opera, surely one of the most beautiful passages Britten
ever penned, I was left with the lingering feeling that Aschenbach
is a bit of a misery, even, sometimes, a bit of a bore.
William Hedley
Gustav von Aschenbach – Marlin Miller
[154:00]
