Tanglewood, Lenox, MA
July 31-August 1, 2013
by Michael J. Moran
Choreographer Mark Morris took his annual Tanglewood
engagement to a new level this year by directing an innovative double bill of
two one-act operas by English masters: Britten’s “Curlew River” (part of
Tanglewood’s observance of that composer’s centennial) and Purcell’s “Dido and
Aeneas.” Morris’s production of Dido was introduced in 1989, but the Britten
was a world premiere.
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| Mark Morris |
The first of three “parables for church performance” that
Britten composed in the 1960s, the hour-long “Curlew River” is based on the
medieval Japanese No play “Sumidagawa.” The moving story of a mother searching
for her lost son is told by a group of monks, several of whom play solo roles
in the drama. The thirteen singer/actors and seven instrumentalists were all
Tanglewood Music Center fellows who intermingled on the stage of Ozawa Hall, set
only with benches draped in white cloth, matching the performers’ simple
costumes.
Everyone brilliantly captured the exotic, otherworldly
quality of the austere music, and while all the featured soloists were
compelling, the overwhelming emotional force of tenor Isaiah Bell’s performance
as the “Madwoman” (the mother) deserves special praise.
Stefan Asbury conducted the Purcell piece, which featured dancers
on stage, while twelve chorus members, three vocal soloists, and thirteen
instrumentalists, performed on the balcony above. Each character was thus
portrayed simultaneously on two levels by a singer and a dancer.
Morris’s choreography expressed the varying moods of the
drama in apt and imaginative ways. The chorus’s hearty cackles in Scene 2 were
amplified by the dancers’ reckless abandon in the dance of the furies. Their
individual slow-motion exits in Dido’s concluding death scene were deeply
moving. The entire ensemble was again impressive, but Laurel Lynch (Dido) and
Spencer Ramirez (Aeneas) danced most outstandingly. Soprano Marie Marquis (a
perky Belinda), mezzo-soprano Samantha Malk (a lush Dido), and baritone Steven
Eddy (a commanding Aeneas) sang most eloquently.
