This is English National Opera’s first production shared between London and Greater Manchester – where the company has been obliged to plan to move its base, following Arts Council England’s diktat. The choice of a relatively small-scale opera – necessary in the circumstances – means it was never going to be the kind of show to announce the new era with a bang. Albert Herring is Britten’s 1947 work, based on a slender 19th-century French story about a mummy’s boy suddenly finding freedom. It calls for only a small orchestra and no chorus, so the company won’t be heading en masse to Salford next week. It’s regular fare at music colleges thanks to its large and even cast, but this staging, surprisingly, is an ENO first.
Billing Antony McDonald’s production as a semi-staging sells it short. The scenery is simple enough – Albert’s stifling Suffolk village is conjured by a couple of cork-boarded walls, handily labelled to indicate whose shop, parlour or hall we’re in now. The period, judging by Sid’s duck’s arse haircut and Nancy’s new look skirt, is the 1950s – postwar, but with a bit of a Dad’s Army feel thanks to Emma Bell’s portrayal of Lady Billows as a khaki-clad tyrant, one part Captain Mainwaring to three parts Miss Trunchbull.
